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THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

A BUNCH OF BREEZY POEMS 



BY 
WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON 



ILLUSTRATED 



PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR 



THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK 



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Copyright, 1914, by 
WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON 



DEC 22 .914 



ICI.A388913 



TO 

THE PIONEERS 

OF THE OLD WEST 

WHO MADE THE NEW WEST POSSIBLE 



FOREWORD 

Most of these verses have been written in self-defense. 
At tlie close of many a busy day they went galloping- 
through the mind until rest was sought in writing them. 
You will find considerable variety in the "menu.'' If 
the first dish served does not suit your taste, kindly try 
another. 

College-day dreams of a literary nature usually fade 
perceptibly under the heat and stress of life's summer. 
The writer has been no exception to the rule. However, 
if these pages add their mite to the sum of wholesome 
happiness, and in any degree assist in the interpreta- 
tion of that wonderland known as "the West," this labor 
of love shall not have been in vain. 

Credit is due the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Rail- 
way Co., the Daily Budget and The Astorian of this city 
for some of the illustrations used. 

William Steward Gordon. 

Astoria, Oregon, Sej^tember, 1914, 



INTKODUCTION 
By Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes, LL.D. 

The life of a pastor seems to give some natural prepa- 
rations for the writing of poetry. There is, first, the 
necessity of studying the great verses of the world, even 
if the motive he solely homiletical. The intelligent 
preacher feels that he must acquaint himself with the 
masterpieces, and he feels, too, that there is a theologi- 
cal reason for knowing "In Memoriam," a sociological 
I'cason for knowing "Aurora Leigh," and a patriotic 
reason for knowing "The Crisis" and "The Commemora- 
tion Ode." His whole life, whether as preacher or as 
man or as citizen, leads him to the great poems. 

Besides this, he must dwell more or less in that realm 
of ideals wherein the true poet makes his home. What- 
ever may be the testimony of the poets, the preachers 
would be ready to say that they feel their kinship with 
the poets of the race. In fact, one will often observe 
that in the tributes to the poet the word "preacher" 
could be substituted without violence, and that even in 
AYordsworth's tribute to the Pastor the word "poet" 
would not have been strange. More than occasionally 
the preacher and the poet are the same man. The union 
is seen in lives such as Charles Kingsley and George 
Herbert. The sermons and the poems got on well to- 
gether, while the preacher and the poet occupied the 
same tabernacle and lived in peace. 

In the second generation the influence of the clerical 
life on the poetic impulse is even more noticeable. In 
England Tennyson was the son of a minister; in Ger- 



10 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

many Lessing; while in America Lowell, Emerson, 
Holmes, Van Dyke and Gilder confess a ministerial 
ancestry. Evidently the Manse invites the Muses; they 
hover above its plain thinking and simple living; they 
share its moods and take many of its children into their 
higher captivity ; and they go thither to have their light 
and tripping quality sobered by the sense of the spiritual. 

Many of the poems in this book are Parsonage chil- 
dren. They were born at various points of an itinerant 
life. They have something of its pathos, something of 
its humanness, something of its humor, something of 
its religious preeminence. They have appeared in local 
papers here and there, and they have once in a while 
ventured into the field of the magazines. Judging by 
the tale implied by one of the poems we may presume 
that sometimes they have gone away from home, only 
to be told by some editor that they would better go back 
to their native walls ! But now they are to come in 
from their wanderings and are to be housed together in 
a volume. Those who visit them in their new home 
will find that they represent the good moods of life — 
inspiring its efforts, soothing its sorrows, glorifying its 
commonness. 

The author is a good man, a good pastor, and a good 
preacher. His friends claim that he is a good poet too. 
He himself modestly asks that his little book be intro- 
duced by one of his brother ministers, who now has 
much pleasure in giving it a Godspeed and in expressing 
the hope that its verses may touch men into the better 
life. 

Episcopal Eesidence, San Francisco, 



conte:nts 

PAGE 

A Vindication 13 

The West Wind 14 

A Welcome to the Fair 15 

The Western Spirit 17 

The March up Mount Hood 18 

The Song of the Pioneer 20 

J upiter's Horses 23 

The Albany Chautauqua 26 

The Peril of Japan 27 

Silver Creek Falls 28 

The Lewis and Clark Trail 31 

An Oregon Dawn 34 

Harvest in Umatilla 34 

The Apple Fair 35 

Autumn on the Umpqua 36 

The Fated Race 38 

Victoria 41 

Jason Lee 42 

The Old Barlow Road 43 

Yellowstone Park 47 

The Sleeping Giant 51 

Ode to Mount Hood 53 

The Indian Death Wail 56 

The Garden in the Skies 59 

Ode to Astoria 61 

The Path to Panama 63 

Oregon Holly 66 

Back to Albany 67 

The Westward March 68 

Patriotic Poems 

A Song for Independence Day 77 

The Visit of the Fleet 78 

The Christ of Argentine 79 

Hymn for Memorial Day 80 

Mental Horizons 82 

The Eagle Ride; or, See First Thy Native Land 84 



12 CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Father Huckleberry's Jingles 

Father Huckleberry and the Aeroplane 92 

Father Huckleberry at Seattle 94 

Webfoot in the Lead 96 

My First Piece of Bear 98 

A Hustle for the Fair 100 

Glacier Park 101 

Uncle Abe's Advice 103 

To an Editor 104 

The Empty Gun 105 

Rural Progress 106 

Sentimental 

Memory's Dream 110 

Meditation Ill 

Transition Ill 

Love's Interpretation 112 

My Baby Sister Has a Beau 113 

The Summertime of Love 115 

Forsaken 118 

Ion 119 

Miscellaneous 

The Epic of the Age 122 

Sing Out in the Sunlight 124 

The Arabian Horse 127 

Old Squiers 130 

Suburban Life 131 

A Man of Forty 134 

A New Song of the Mill 135 

A Poet's Appeal for the Natural 137 

The Call of the Coast 141 

The Ministry of Nature 143 

The Victory of Faith 146 

An Echo from the Sea 147 

Triumphus 148 



A YIXDICATION 

Say what you will of '^rhymesters/' 
And "the poet in the spring," 

The earth has more of music 
Because he tries to sing. 

He may not soar to Alpine heights 
If nature clipped his wing, 

And few, indeed, may know his name 
When he has ceased to sing ; 

But how we'd miss the many birds 

That sing a minor strain. 
And the unassuming lilies 

That blossom in the lane ! 

For they help to swell the chorus 
Of the song that never dies. 

As the music of creation 
Is ascending to the skies. 

Then sing your little heart-song! 

It may cheer another soul 
As he marches up the mountain. 

As he presses to the goal. 



14 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 




THE WEST WIND 

AVheii but a boy with eager ears 
The winds would talk to me ; 

They told me tales of mountain meres 
And stories of the sea. 

Tlie North Wind is Boreas' breath — 
He scuds across the plain^ 

And howls in hurricanes of death 
And winding-sheets of rain. 



The East Wind tells of sage and sand 

And coyotes in a pack — 
Of whirling cyclones in his hand, 

And havoc in his track: 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 15 



But the West Wind is a pirate bold; 

She robs the sea and sings 
Of dewdrops rich as yellow gold — 

She bears them on her wings, 

And pours them out so full and free 

That baby streamlets grow; 
And so without the wind you see 

The rivers could not flow. 

Her silken wings now fan my face, 

And perfume shed the while 
Fresh from Pacific's fond embrace 

And sweet Hawaii's isle. 

She knows where Arabs pitch their tent 

And dolphins swim the sea, 
The secrets of the Orient, 

And Neptune's mystery. 

The South Wind brings the heat and dust, 
The North Wind brings the snow. 

But Nature sings, for sing she must. 
When the balmy West Winds blow. 

^ ^ ^ 

A WELCOME TO THE FAIR 
(Written for the Panama Exposition.) 

To north and south, and east and west, 

Sierra's eagle cries : 
"Come see the land we love the best — 

'Eureka !' 'Tis our prize." 



i6 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

The four winds catch the eagle cry, 
x4nd waft it round the world. 

Inviting ships of sea and sky 
To see the flag unfurled. 

A continent is cut in twain, 

Ignoring nature's law, 
And men from every mart and main 

Will honor Panama. 

Westward ! Westward ! o'er the plain 

Is borne on every gale — 
They come by broncho, car, and train 

O'er every western trail. 

Eastward ! Eastward ! set the sail. 

Mikado's men of war, 
Come tread in peace the mystic trail 

In Frisco's harbor bar. 

Northward! Northward! o'er "the line" 
From old Magellan's strait. 

The mermaid paths upon the brine 
Lead to the Golden Gate. 

Southward ! Southward ! is the goal — 
Let not the dog train stay 

Till every "musher" from the pole 
Is camped upon the Bay ! 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



17 




THE WESTER^^ SPIEIT 

No language can define it 

And the miner cannot mine it — 
'Tis illusive as the spirit of the wind. 

Xo chemist can distill it, 

To tame it is to kill it, 
And it leaves the world's contestants all behind. 

^Tis the spirit of Seattle, 

And the hammers' hum and rattle 
Of Portland as she pulsates in her power. 

'Tis Willamette's growing pains. 

As she clutches at the reins 
Of Progress at a hundred miles an hour. 



It's the tramp of herds of cattle 
And the war whoop of the battle — 
It's a sort of magic microbe in the blood. 



i8 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

It's the patriotic passion 
Iiunnino- ^Yil(I in Western fashion, 
And expanded with the wideness of the wood. 

Why, listen, don't you hear it? 

'Tis the Eooseveltian spirit, 
And the bucking of the l)ronchos at C*heyenne. 

^Tis the song of Forty-niner, 

iVnd the shout of Dawson miner, 
With the hustle and the bustle of the glen. 

^Tis the recklessness of youth 

And the daring of Duluth, 
In a medley and romance of the mind. 

'Tis the spirit of adventure, 

And you cannot catch or quencli her 
With an auto and an aeroplane combined. 

'Tis the spirit of the mountain, 

And old Ponce's fabled fountain. 
Set to music in Multnomah's cataract. 

It has struck the West to win it 

And you'd better all be in it. 
For it's going, and it's never coming back. 

^ ^ ^ 

THE MAKCH UP MOUNT HOOD 

(Written on Mount Hood, August 11, 1910.) 

Fall in line at the midnight call. 
With screw-shod shoes and bloomers and all, 
For the ice is hard and the going is good. 
So hurrah for the summit of old Mount Hood ! 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 19 

And lierc'.s to the moiiarcli old and gmy, 
And here's to the guides who lead the way, 
iVnd a jollier band of maidens and men 
Will never make tracks on the mountain again. 

Get your colored specs and j^our Alpine stock, 
Which you will not trade for a city block, 
And follow the lantern single file, 
To the goal of your day-dream, mile on mile. 

Our shadows stalk across the sand 
Like the ghost of some dead Indian band. 
Up glacier rivers, o'er shale and shelf. 
From Mountain Yiew to the mountain itself. 

Ere the morning star has said good-by 
An arch of glory gilds the sky, 
And a giant silhouette fills the west 
Like some departing mountain guest. 

Let the faint of heart no longer dare, 
For the ice-ax clicks in the frosty air. 
And this is the tocsin that greets the dawn, 
^Tis on and up, His up and on. 

Through sulphur fumes at the crater's edge, 
And up the ropes on the turquoise ledge — 
And what is the cry that greets us then ? 
It's, "Paint your face and at it again." 

From moraines we mount the sharp arete 
Where the snow^ tracks red like bloody feet. 
And icicles fringe the caverns like corn. 
O'er fathomless deeps where the rivers are born. 



20 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

On ladders we leap the last crevasse, 
While lips are mute till we safely pass, 
And we seem to stand at heaven's door 
And shout "Excelsior !" no more. 

In silent awe we view the sight 

Of beauty, majesty, and might, 

x\nd this is the word for the welkin wall : 

Man is nothing — God is all. 

* ^ * 

THE SONG OF THE PIONEER 

(Read at the Pioneers' Association at Brownsville, 

Oregon, 1911.) 

I would sing a song for the pioneer. 

That sturdy soul and bold. 
Whose rugged worth to the western world 

Has never half been told. 

With buckskin leggins, belt and knife, 

And trusted rifle true, 
He coped with nature, beasts, and men, 

And came out victor, too. 

He often ate but once a day. 

And shivered in the rain. 
But whistled till the sun came out. 

Nor thought of it again. 

But the panorama changes soon — 

The trappers disappear — 
For red adventure is not all 

That makes a pioneer. 




H 

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22 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

Methinks I see a cattle team 
Crawl up the Eocky's crest, 

And with its freight a wife and child 
And the future of the West. 

O'er alkali, o'er marsh and moor. 
And roaring canyons deep. 

Mid panther screams and Indian yells 
Their lonely camp they keep. 

And suns they rise and suns they set, 
But westward still and on, 

Till the road fades into a winding trail. 
And the trail itself is gone. 

Through bristling forest dense and dim 
They hew a path to the sea. 

And blaze a way for the march of men 
And the millions yet to be. 

For civilization followed fast 
These men of brawn and brain. 

And o'er their trail the iron horse 
Soon galloped with his train. 

Their fathers won the eastern coast, 
With its barren hills and ice. 

But these subdued a better land — 
The western paradise. 

But where are now those fearless souls 

Of fifty-two and three? 
Meek, Nesmith, Lee, and x\pplegate, 

And a score of their degree ? 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 23 

They rode the gaunt, black horse of death 

Over the great divide — 
They scaled the purple peaks of time 

And camped on the farther side. 

i\.nd only a remnant now remains 

Of the men of '53, 
But the work they did will stand secure 

Till time has ceased to be. 

Then let us lift our hats to them, 

Nor stop the falling tear. 
And pay our debt of gratitude 

To the honored pioneer. 



JUPITER'S HOESES; OE, THE MODEEN^ 
LOCOMOTIVE 

How often at night I have stood on the hill 
While the valley below was sleeping and still, 
When, with rumble and roar and a flame on the sky. 
The lightning express went thundering by. 

With its rhythmical gallop, and click of the steel. 
It snorted its challenge as if it could feel, 
And I said, as my fancy took wings at the sight, 
"Old Jupiter's horses are racing to-night." 

But he slackens his pace and is pausing to drink 
Like the dragon himself at the Stygian brink — 
See him balking and backing and going again, 
A stallion of steel too noble for men. 



24 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

Striking fire with his hoof, and with fire in his eye, 
Like a meteor trailing his train in the sky, 
With a demon's endurance, with splendor and speed. 
He must be a deity's charger indeed. 

One century's fruitage ! How narrow the span 
Since spoke into being by magical man 
These monsters have followed the mystical rail ! 
'No "Lamp of Aladdin" can equal the tale ! 

Compelled by the spirit possessing the age, 
They chafed in New England like bears in a cage, 
And, breaking their tethers, exulting and free. 
And leaping the Father of Waters in glee, 

They charged o'er the deserts with reckless career, 
Leaving panther and bison afar in the rear. 
They plunged through Sierra's perpetual snow 
And reached the proud city now smoldering low.^ 

Then northward and southward, and thither and back, 
Went they, rearing and tearing and crossing their 

track, 
Now swerving and curving the yawning abyss — 
Hid e'er a Mazeppa ride charger like this? 

With a fury imprisoned, with wings of the wind, 
With torrent and tempest unheeded behind, 
Undaunted by darkness or heat of the day, 
Was ever Bucephalus royal as they? 



iThis was written just after the San Francisco earthquake and fire. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



25 



Then where are the kings of the turf or '^the trot" 
With honors like Stephenson, Evans, and Watt? 
Let us burnish their names and emblazon them bright 
While Jupiter's horses are charging to-night ! 

Kow their number is legion. With passionate mirtli 
Hear them racing and chasing all over the eartli ! 
In hamlet and city they're crowding the street, 
All in from the race course, and panting with heat. 

And here wliere the llmpqua caresses the sea, 
I am dreaming to-night how soon it will be 
When the snort of the engine shall rouse me to think 
"Old Ju])iter's horses are coming to drink." 





26 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 




THE ALBANY CHAUTAUQUA 

Come among the birds and flowers, 
Linger 'neath the sylvan bowers, 
Where iSTature spends her magic powers, 
And blends with bliss the fleeting honrs, 
At Chautauqua. 



Hear the wood nymph's wooing call, 
Adown the wildwood's vibrant hall. 
By mossy banks and waterfall. 
With ocean breezes kissing all, 

At Chautauqua. 

Where muses tune their sweetest lyre, 
Where Art and Beauty both conspire 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 27 

With Northern wit and Southern fire, 
As the AVestern spirit rises higher, 
At Chautauqua. 

Let no carping care pursue you; 
Let the limpid Calapooia 
And the wild Willamette woo you, 
Till the healing waves renew you, 
At Chautauqua. 

jg- eg- Jg- 

THE PERIL OF JAPAN 

(Before the siege of Port Arthur.) 

Arise ! thou little Second Greece, 

Go forth and win your star, 
For lo, your horoscope is cast 

In gruesome clouds of war. 

Your sires have wrought in bloody sweat 

To lengthen out your days, 
Your sons have sought the western world 

And studied well her ways. 

Blend art with ancient valor now, 
Nor pause you for the night, 
' For see ! with bristling fleet appears 
The mighty Muscovite. 

^The "Arctic Bear's" insatiate greed 

Has claimed you for his maw; 
He scented long your honeyed isles, 
x\nd reaches forth his paw — 



^Thc author's figure is of a Russian bear coming south over the map of 
Asia. Bears are especially fond of honey. 



28 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

And one would seize the Union Jack 

Down by the Bengal Bay — 
His breath would strike the flag of France, 

And send it home to stay. 

Let China l)ow her hoary head 

If ever this shall be — 
For next he'd lick her dripping Ijlood, 

And rule the southern sea. 

Let Tenno's spirit come again 

Like Fuji-yama's flame ! 
"Land of the Eising Sun/' arise ! 

Add luster to your name ! 

Thou Guardian of the Orient, 

Strike now in sacred scorn ! 
Strike now the blow omnipotent 

For which your race was born ! 



^ ^ ^ 

SILVER CEEEK FALLS 

With a voice of many thunders 
Like the roaring of the sea, 

Queen amidst the Cascade wonders, 
Silver Falls, I sing for thee ! 

Through the black basaltic columns 
Guarded ])y the bristling hills, 

Plunges now the gathered tumult 
Of a thousand rushing rills. 




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30 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

In the torrid sun of sunnncr^ 
Arched with rainbows all aglow, 

Pours the frantic, foaming river 
To the caldron down below. 

I have slept beside your torrent, 
I have sported in your spray, 

I have breathed the balmy Ijalsam 
Of your pines at break of day. 

Dizzy heights a bed of blossom ! 

Eugged rocks with mosses rare. 
Decked with nature's lingerie — 

Trailing tress of maidenhair. 

Hark ! a quartet in the distance 
Blend their voices with your own. 

Are they muses long imprisoned 
Near the queen of beauty's throne? 

Or did Neptune, god of waters, 
And the Queen of Thunders wed ? 

Sprung these five Titanic daughters 
From such wild Cascadian bed? 

Tell me not of old Niagara, 

Or the cataract Ladore, 
Till you've seen this group of grandeur 

Lying almost at your door. 

Wild the leap of old Multnomah, 
Sweet the Falls of Bridal Veil, 

But this Garden of the Graces 
Gathers all within its pale. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



31 



With a voice of many tliuiHlers 
Like the roaring of the sea, 

Queen amid the magic wonders- 
Silver Creek, sing on for me ! 

^ ^ ^ 




THE LEWIS AND CLAEK TEAIL 

(Written for the Lewis and Clark Exposition at Portland, 

Oregon, 1905.) 

As o'er a sea mitried and dark, 

Into the setting sun, 
Colimibus di'ove his gallant l)arqiie 

IT]itil a world was won, 



So into the west two hearts as strong 

As ever sat under a sail 
Into a wilderness deep and long 

Followed an unknown "Trail." 



32 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

O'er pristine j^rairies rolling wide 

Where roamed the buffalo. 
O'er parching sand and deep divide 

Hard by eternal snow, 

Past wolves and wildmen held at l)av, 
And cataracts wild and grand, 

The "Star of Empire" led the way 
On to the mystic land. 

But the Trail at last ran into the tide 
That washes the wonderful West, 

Where the Oregon pours her waters wide 
On the "Peaceful Ocean's" breast. 

And they planted there the standard true 
That waves on high to-day — 

"They builded wiser than they knew" 
As they blazed the rugged way. 

For lo ! a caravan in white 

With priceless pilgrim freight. 

Soon crowd the path, and wondrous sight. 
They build an empire great ! 

Along the Trail so wild and bleak 
The harnessed lightnings play — 

And hark ! I hear an engine sliriek 
In triumph o'er the way. 

Now see them come ! In tiers, on tiers. 
They throng the hill and vale. 

To view the growth of a hundred years 
Along the ancient Trail ! 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



33 



The treasures of the East they bring, 
E'en from the fiekls of Avar, 

While wireless wizards on the wing 
Bring greetings from afar. 

Let paeans ring from "Golden State" 
To Yukon's golden shore ! 

Tlie world is waiting at our gate — 
Throw open wide the door ! 




"•THEY BUILDED WISER THAN THEY KNEW" 



34 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

AN OREGON DAWN 

On the tide of the morning, the light 
Came flooding the inlets of day, 

And all the dark rivers of night 
Were burnished Avith heavenly ray. 

Then the Angel of Light swung open 
The glorious gates of the dawn, 

And the jubilant choirs of creation 
Marched into the day and marched on. 



^ ^ ^ 



HAEVEST IN UMATILLA 

Heigh-ho ! for the Oregon highlands, 

That Garden of Ceres aglisten ! 
Climb a Blue Mountain summit supernal! 

Put your ear to the ground as you listen ! 
And what is that tremble and tramping? 

'Tis a score and more thousand of feet — 
'Tis an army of harvester horses — 

Umatilla is cutting her wheat. 

Hear the champing and tramping and neighing, 

The buzz and the hum and the rattle ! 
0, the billowy cereal ocean 

Is a glorious field for the battle. 
Hear the whistle and song of the drivers ! 

See the maidens with hurrying feet ! 
Umatilla is threshing in earnest 

Her five million bushels of wheat. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 35 

And look at the pyramids rising, 

And the long laden trains on the way ! 
Why, for each one of Uncle Sam's children 

A biscuit is reaped in a day. 
Then take off your hats, all ye rivals, 

And cast your bouquets at her feet. 
And yell like the '^'^rooters" in college — 

Umatilla is reaping her wheat ! 



^ i^ ^ 



THE APPLE FATE 

What is all this fuss about? 
Trains all loaded in and out. 
Blushing fruit and blushing maid — 
Sauces, jellies, marmalade — 
Pies and dumplings scent the air — • 
Why, it's Oregon's Apple Fair ! 

"Pyrus Malus King shall be," 
Shout the Profs, from 0. A. C. — 
Till every apple gets in style 
With the famous "Billiken smile." 
Balmy Indian summer air — 
All aboard for the Apple Fair ! 

See the beauties, old and new — 
Starks and Spitzens, Baldwins, too. 
Yellow N"ewtowns, Kings, and Spies, 
Gloria Mundis Jumbo size! 
Your aunts and uncles will be there, 
So don't you miss that Apple Fair ! 



36 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



Sturdy stock from every clan 

From Halifax to Hindustan 

All reach perfection in the sun 

Among the hills of Oregon — 

So toss that headgear in the air 

And shout, "Hurrah for the iVj^ple Fair !' 



«- ^ 




AUTUMN ON THE UMPQUA 

The sun is peeking o'er the edge 
Of yonder blue and bristling ledge, 
And flinging o'er the vagrant night 
An aureole of golden light 
That crowns a ridge of regal firs, 
Whose plumes the morning zephyr stirs. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 37 

The wind is like a wounded dove, 
Still sobbing soft her deathless love — 
So come with me and we will ride 
The lordly Umpqua's flowing tide, 
For none e'er dreamed a grander dawn 
Than greets the hills of Oregon. 

And none e'er dreamed a sweeter maid 
Than blends her charm with sheen and shade, 
The while her western sj^ell she weaves 
With scent of wild vanilla leaves — 
Did e'er the Dannbe or the Don 
Bear fairer girls than Oregon? 

The skulking river seems to hide 
Where black basaltic bluffs divide; 
Weird Echo Island takes our shout 
And sends it bounding all about, 
While royal salmon sport and spring. 
Their golden armor glistening. 

We see old Bruin grunt and sniff 
And shuffle off behind a cliff; 
While by yon laurel's ruddy base. 
Unconscious of her sylvan grace, 
A doe is feeding with her fawn — 
And this is life in Oregon ! 

!N'ow hark old Neptune's rising roar. 
And mark the maples on the shore — 
Did not some Turner from the skies 
Here lavish all his mystic dyes 
To paint a cosmic masterpiece 
To grace a paradisan Greece? 



38 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

Smooth as yon coots upon the keel. 
Our launch glides onward, as we feel 
The charm where coast and country kiss 
In one enchanted land of bliss — 
Then know that life is scarce begun 
Until you've lived in Oregon. 

Talk not of ^^melancholy days/' 
Of "naked woods" and "icy ways/' 
And "dark forebodings of the snow"; 
Let old October come and go, 
For Spring and Summer blend in one 
When Autumn comes in Oregon ! 



^ 5^ ^ 



THE FATED EACE 

I stood on the banks of the Klickitat, 

In an Indian camping ground, 
Where a dusky band of Yakimas 

Had pitched their tents around. 

They could see the bluffs of an ancient fort 
Where their fathers had bent the bow — 

Where wdiite and red had fought and bled 
In the battles of long ago. 

They could see the white man's furrowed fields 
Where they could hunt no more. 

And their hearts grew cold as the snowy peaks 
That dotted the landscape o'er. 




"he sadly gazep on the busy road 



40 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

They sadly gazed on the busy road 
Where once they followed the trail, 

AVhile in the twilight gleamed the si3ires 
Of the village of Goldendale. 

That night I saw them move their camp, 

And ride with solemn tread 
As if they were chanting a requiem 

In honor of their dead. 

The long line threaded the Simcoe hills 
Where now they are forced to stay, 

And only the dying embers showed 
Where a "nation" camped that day. 

Like phantoms grim were the willow shades 
Where the path ran into the stream, 

And I saw them cross it one by one 
In the moonlight's silver gleam. 

And this, said I, is an emblem true 

Of all their fated race — 
They are crossing the river one l)y one 

AVhile the white man takes their place. 

Thus civilization surges on, 
Nor waits for flesh and blood, 

And those who cannot stem its tide 
Must sink beneath the flood, 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 41 



VICTORIA 

rock-rihbed city of the western sea, 

\Mio could not tune his lyre in song tor thee? 

AVith solemn castles gazing out across the sea, 
^yith grand Olympics smiling back at thee, 

You float in ^''ipon's soft salubrious breeze, 
A tropic island in the northern seas, 

A full-blown rose of old Victorian days. 

And loath to leave your cherished mother's ways. 

Enriched with all the century can give, 

You still take time to think and feel and live. 

As a ripple in a treasure-laden stream 
Gathers the gold-dust born through shade and 
gleam, 

So thou hast sifted well the flowing tide 

Of ruthless Western wealth and Eastern pride. 

Upon the "Lion's" mane you safely cling 
Nor fear the rustle of the '"Eao-le's" win a-. 

portal fair to Yukon's oil and gold. 

Prize well the envied vantage ground you hold ! 

seagirt goddess rich in mead and mine. 
Guard well "Britannia's far-flung battle line !" 



42 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



JASON LEE 

A cry from the gloom of the western wilds ! 

A pleading, outstretched hand ! 
"0 who will give iis the white man's book. 

The trail to the spirit land?" 
'Twas the death wail of the Indian race, 

And longer, londer grew, 
Till the winds caught up the weird refrain 

And echoed, "Who— 0, Who?" 

And methinks that heaven took up the cry 

Around the glassy sea. 
And whispers leaped from lip to lip — 

"Who will the hero be?" 
And on our shore the angels looked 

And wept in sympathy. 
But none could find the man to go 

Till God said, "Jason Lee." 



Then Freedom cried with clarion voice, 

"Where is the soul so bold 
To tame yon howling wilderness 

With its buried hope and gold? 
Who will, for me, unfurl the flag 

For the millions yet to be ?" 
And Old Glory seemed to vibrate 

With the name of Jason Lee. 

Again the voice of heaven called, 

"0 w^ho will go for me. 
And consecrate a lonely spot 

In that empire by the sea, 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 43 

For a stately Concord of the West — 

A Salem yet to be?" 
And Heroism answered back, 

"The wife of Jason Lee." 

Anon a temple to our God 

Arose majestic'ly 
Beside the silent camping ground 

Where both sleep peacefully. 
Among a galaxy of stars, 

Whose shall the honor be? 
And some said this and some said that, 

But God said, "Jason Lee." 

In Old Willamette's hall of fame. 

First shall her founder be — 
Ah ! now methinks I see him stand 

On heaven's balcony — 
So big in body, heart, and brain. 

And modest dignity — 
The prince of western pioneers — 

The stalwart Jason Lee. 



iP- ^ ^ 



THE OLD BARLOAY EOAD 

(Written at Government Camp, Mount Hood, August 15, 

1910.) 

Tread softly, boys, 'tis sacred dust. 

Though only a mountain trail, 
And every tree is a monument. 

And each stone a coffin nail. 



44 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

We stand on the famous Barlow Road, 

Cut deep in history, 
For o'er it came the immigrant train 

From "the States" to the western sea. 



This mile or more is abandoned now, 

As a better route was found. 
No modern wheel or automobile 

Has defiled the holy ground. 

From Sherer's bridge across De Chutes, 

Moved many a famished crew. 
Around Mount Hood, down Zigzag Gulch 

To the town of lievenue. 

Thence onward to Willamette Falls 

Slow crept the caravans. 
Or southward to Chemeckety 

Where now a statehouse stands. 

And o'er this trail for centuries gone 
Had the muffled moccasin passed. 

But the white man took the red man's road- 
And his wide domain at last. 

Here are footprints, too, of the weary feet 

Of the Indian mother or maid. 
Who bore in pain her merciless load. 

And her merciless lord obeyed. 

So the dust we tread is eloquent dust — 

See, here is an arrow head, 
iVnd these Avhispering trees arc telling the tale 

Of the battles of white and red. 




WE STAND ON THE FAMOUS BAKLOW ROAD' 



46 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

There's the skull of an ox by yonder rocks, 

And here a bit of leather — 
Eelics, perchance;, of the pioneers, 

Defying wind and weather. 

That cedar root, all worn and torn, 

Is a legend of many a line ; 
It was written there in human blood 

By the wheels of "forty-nine." 

And see ! This bone is a woman's arm 
Unearthed by the rains, no doubt. 

They buried her here beneath the road 
So the wolves wouldn't dm her out. 



"to 



And yonder slab, rough-hewed and rude, 
Was placed by a woman's hands; 

She buried her husband there, they say. 
Then drove on o'er the sands. 

Alone, she chiseled the name and date — 
With love and an ax 'twas done. 

Ah, the women that trod the Oregon Trail 
Were mothers and men in one ! 

And to journey on, what a lonesome way 

For her and her little flock! 
And every camp was farther away 

From the little sacred rock. 

And here they swung the wagons down 
With rope and chain and stay, 

For every wheel was a wheel of fate 
And could never return this way — 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 47 



Or better, wheels of Progress they, 

In Civilization's march, 
And the Zigzag Pass on the Barlow Eoacl 

Is the great triumphal arch. 

So this to me is sacred dust, 

Though only a "Witches' Trail," 

And every blaze is an epitaph, 
And each clod a coffin nail. 

# ^ ^ 

YELLOWSTONE PAEK— THE SECOND 
PAEADISE 

In ages past when Art was young. 
And Music had not found her tongue. 

Since man had fallen neath the curse. 

The Maker of the universe, 
In love, methinks, conceived to plan 
Another paradise for man. 

Exploring angels sought afar 
To find a site where nought could mar. 
And high upon the Eocky's crest. 
Like a gate to heaven for the West, 
They found a mystic land unknown. 
Which now we call the Yellowstone. 

^T would be a place the race could sense 

The grandeur of Omnipotence; 

Where through the ages, hour by hour. 
Would be displayed his sovereign power, 

While every tender touch of love 

Would woo the soul to things above. 



48 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

All heights, all depths, all heat, all cold 
Were fashioned in a mammoth mold. 
Both heaven and hades tribute paid 
When this new paradise was made. 
For God in nature reigned alone 
In carving out the Yellowstone. 

But, as the hare more swiftness feels 
Who hears the hound upon his heels, 
And has another chance to live, 
Which fair incentives could not give, 
So God commends his love to men 
By danger signals now and then. 

Plence all the hideousness of hell. 
With lurid light and noxious smell, 
From every dark and dismal shore, 
With horrid hiss and vengeful roar 
Is raging like a living thing 
From fiery pit and Stygian spring. 

Great caldrons built on Titan plan. 
Well named "The Devil's Frying Pan," 
And gushing geysers vent their wrath 
And leave a brimstone aftermath. 
But, awe and fury are not all 
That's writ on sky and mountain wall. 

For Beauty is a boon that's given 
To bless this world, as well as heaven. 
Fair angel artists sought afar 
For shade and sheen from every star — 
For every rare and radiant gem. 
To deck the mountain's diadem. 




"and gushing geysers vent their wrath'^ 



50 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

The cliffs and clouds alike were kissed 
With dyes of some great alchemist, 

While sa})phire flame and burnished gold 
Were rolled in splendor, fold on fold, 
To arch the canyon's yawning deep, 
And paint the lakes that lie asleep. 

The "Paint Pots" and the pools are here, 
The "Easel Lake" and gossamer. 

The "Sleeping Giant" and his seat — 
An artist's studio all complete — 
The God of Beauty held his throne 
When heaven made the Yellowstone. 

Anon, the moisture-laden breeze 
Bore in its burden from the seas. 
And soon a river leaped in play 
And galloped toward the gates of day. 
While to the westward hastened one 
Where in the ocean falls the sun. 

But, that the place thus set apart 
Should ever keep to Nature's heart. 
Old warden Winter shuts the gate. 
And white-robed sentries stand in state. 
While silent moons they come and go. 
Until the flowrets pierce the snow. 

'Tis paradise for beast and bird, 
Where hunter's gun is never heard. 
Here plays the antelope and fawn. 
The eagle, osprey, and the swan; 
The beaver builds his house in peace. 
The wapati and moose increase. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 51 

And here converge from all the earth 
The friends of truth, the knights of mirth. 

The fainting heart and laggard brain 

Are girded for their task again, 
For God in nature reigns alone, 
Within the walls of Yellowstone. 




jg- ^ jg- 



THE SLEEPING GIANT 

(This unique natural curiosity is in Northwestern Wyo- 
ming, and is formed by a strange grouping of mountains. It 
is especially vivid and imposing from Lake Yellowstone.) 

for some language from on high 
To catch the spirit of the sky 

In which this monarch sleeps ! 
Eecumbent on his rugged throne, 
Where summits pierce the ether zone 

He crowns the beetling steeps. 



52 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

His white-capped sentries stand around, 
As if by some unearthly sound 

They petrified with fear. 
His altar fires still smolder low, 
His fountains leap with overflow 

In royal gardens near. 

Was he some prehistoric man, 
Built on the ancient Aztec plan 

To rule from shore to shore? 
Or Thor, the noisy thunder god, 
Put fast asleep by Morpheus' rod 

And left for evermore? 

In bold relief against the sky, 

With clitf-made l)row and heavy eye, 

Upon Ids back he lies. 
The spirit of the AYest, methinks. 
Incarnate in this sleeping sphinx, 

For aeons did not rise. 

With biggest dreams his soul is stirred. 
He only waits his Master's word — 

The clouds are flushed with dawn. 
But half awakened to his power. 
He gathers vigor for his hour. 

To lead the nations on. 

He dwells among the primal things. 
And save the swish of eagle's wings. 

And angry Lightning's tramp, 
Hull Silence reigns about his head — 
A hollow stillness draped with dread. 

Where things eternal camp. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 53 

His couch is veiled with mountain mist, 
His brow is by the morning kissed, 

And his the last good-night. 
Above the petty strifes of man, 
Where Envy smites, and keeps who can, 

He faces toward the light. 

How like our race that cumbent form ! 
A target where the Titan storm 

With fiery feet has trod ! 
And when it seemed that it was sleeping, 
An age-long vigil it w^as keeping. 

Still looking up to God. 

jg- eg- J^ 

ODE TO MOUNT HOOD 

(Written at Mount Hood, August 14, 1910.) 

Author of music, majesty, and might, 
Lift me to nobler heights than I have known — 
Expand my soul, breathe bigness in my words, 
For mighty Hood demands a song high-pitched 
Above mere Kipling rhymes and common things. 
No puny pipes 0' Pan play here on reeds. 
But Boreas, whose smile the rainbow is. 
Sounds forth his deep-voiced organ of the North. 

Majestic monarch of the proud Cascades, 
I drink thy beauty as the gates of dawn 
Are lifting o'er thy gilded glacier fields. 
Was heaven stripped of all her gorgeous dyes 
To paint this rainbow on the skies, that fills 
The vast horizon's arcli, and crowns in light 
Thy solemn silhouette against the sky? 




WHi 





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THE WESTERN SPIRIT 55 

What cataclysm reared thy mighty form 

And strewed thy fragments for a hmidred miles? 

Does old Mollis, fabled King of Winds, 

Dwell here, "Steel's Cliff'' his brazen sounding 

board, 
His acolytes the harpies of the storm ? 
From whence this curling smoke and sulphur fumes, 
And why this heat around thy ancient throat? 
AYill Stygian fury some day spew its rage 
Anew on lurid skies and leaping hills? 
On Cloud Cap Inn, and new Pompeii's Camps? 

No "Alps on Alps" beyond thy crest arise. 
With ermine robe and Hermes' fleecy veil 
Thou hast the morn's first kiss and last good-night. 
Just now the dove of peace hangs o'er thy head 
And hovers gently in the sleepy clouds, 
Which pendant hang as o'er a newborn heaven — 
But while I speak, I hear the rumbling storm 
Like chariots o'er these hollow fields of ice. 
And heaven's dome is etched with zigzag light, 
And frescoed with the foam that breaks around 
Thy head — the target of the thunderbolt. 

Thy lakes and caves are reservoirs of power, 
Thy cliffs and canyons, autographs of God. 
These pinnacles are heaven-pointing hands. 
These jutting ledges, arabesques divine. 
N"o Pharaoh bleaches 'neath thy pyramid — 
Nor was it built by blood of goaded serfs — ■ 
The Lord alone reigns here — he was, and is. 
And is to be thine only potentate. 



56 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



THE INDIAN DEATH WAIL 

All the village of Rikawrus 

Is a pageant of mii'th, 
As a band of Cheyenne wari'iors, 

With their painted shield and girth, 

Eide and chant a song of triumph, 
All in war paints bloody red, 

With a crest of eagle feathers 
Bristling gayly from each head. 

Hear the dance and savage music — 
Roman revel gone insane — 

Old and young in gaudy trappings — 
Painted demons "raisins: Cain." 



Scalps and trophies, shields and banners 
Deck the wigwams and the trees — 

Shouting heralds spread the tidings 
Of the recent victories. 

Bonfires glare in garish glee. 
Ghoulish shadows farther crawl, 

Till a silence suddenly 

O'er the feasting seems to fall. 

From the bleak and barren mountain, 
Looming grim upon the plain. 

Comes a wail upon the night wind 
Like a desert ghost in pain. 



58 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

Worse than wail of starving panther, 
Dismal as from doomed souls. 

Louder, longer, wilder, weirder, 
Wave on wave the anguish rolls. 

They are j^oor, defenseless women — 
Women wailing for their dead — 

Hungry, cold, and all forsaken — 
Winter's blast upon their head. 

One by one had they departed, 
When a runner first revealed 

That a husband, son, or lover 
Had been left upon the field. 

Lonely Chip-pe-wy-an Mountains 
Mock the cadence of their cry — 

If the wolf-pack soon assembles 
They will neither fight nor fly. 

Tell me not, sordid Saxon, 
That an Indian cannot feel — 

That the "font of his affections 
Has been frozen cold as steel.'' 

True, he has been dwarfed and hardened- 
Made to drink life's bitter mead. 

Made the target of the tempest. 
And the victim of our greed. 

But, Shoshone or Cheyenne, 
Sioux, Nez Perce, Powhatan — 

Still beneath the stoic breast 
Beats the aching heart of man. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 59 

THE GARDEN IN THE SKIES 

I see a garden in the skies, 

Fresh with celestial showers — 
Is it some mirage of j^aradise? 
Or the spirit land of flowers? 
Whatever it be, 
It seems to me 
More beautiful than ours. 

Above the purple hills of dawn 

A giant sunflower peeps, 
And when his yellow disk is gone 
And the moon her voyage keeps. 
She's a lily — 
Pale and chilly. 
On her azure lake she sleeps. 

Yon burnished clouds are floral banks 

On the grave of Yesterday — 
See the sable nuns in broken ranks 
File down the j^ath to pray, 
And strew the night 
With petals white, 
Which makes the "Milky Way" ! 

A comet is a big bouquet 

Trailed headlong in a race; 
Each star a white anemone 
Emplanted in her place — 
So shy and pale. 
So fair and frail. 
She gives the garden grace. 



6o 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



When through the clouds at evening's ebb, 

I saw those twmkling eyes, 
It used to seem a diamond web 
Where sifted gold-dust lies, 
But now it seems 
That perfume streams 
From a flower bed in the skies ! 





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'0>^ PIER AZURE LAKE SHE SLEEPS" 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 6i 

ODE TO ASTOEIA 

On Columbia's broadened breast 

At the Gateway of the West 
Is a city which the Muses did decree 

Was to sit a sylvan queen 

On her terraced hills of green 
While she listens to the music of the sea. 

Once a famous financier 

With a j)rophet's listful ear 
Built a rustic little hamlet on the shore. 

With its rugged palisade 

In the gloomy forest shade, 
Methinks that I can see it as of yore. 

In the mists of early dawn, 

In the century agone, 
I seem to hear a siren as it sings : 

"Let the trapper ply his trade. 

While the dusky Clatsop maid 
Looks wdth wonder on ^the ships with the wings.' 

"Let the sportive spotted fawn 

Feed upon the sylvan la^vn, 
But mind the couchant shadow in the tree ! 

Let the mighty, magic river 

Mingle with the mists forever 
As it's wedded to the Avaters of the sea. 

"0 the lonely, nameless shore 

Where dumb silence evermore 
,Is but deepened by the sobbing of the tide ! 

the mute and mulBed sigh 

When the bloody arrows fly. 
And a scalp is brought a-quiver to a bride" ! 




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THE WESTERN SPIRIT 63 



But the mystery and maze 

Of romantic early days 
Are but setting for the centuries before. 

There's a flush upon the sky, 

Her crowning day is nigh, 
And she finds herself sitting at the world's front door. 

Port of entry potentate, 

In an empire growing great, 
Stretching eastward to the Eocky Mountain's crest — 

Pioneer of pioneers, 

Gath'ring treasure with the years. 
Old Astoria, the Brooklyn of the West ! 

Not an isolated post, 

But a city she shall boast 
Where the ships shall ride at anchor from the world. 

Firmly fixed by N'ature's law 

On the path to Panama, 
Let her banners to the breeze be unfurled. 

Astoria, my pride. 

On Columbia's heaving tide. 
With the balmy ocean breath on your breast. 

May your purpose point as high 

As your cedars in the sky, 
While you safely guard the Gateway of the West. 

^ ^ ^ 

THE PATH TO PANAMA 

Bring your dredges. Uncle Sam, 
Now they're done at Gatun Dam, 

Open up our channel mouth 

For the traffic going south, 




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THE WESTERN SPIRIT 65 

Di^i^- it deep and dig it wide, 
Make Invention help the tide, 

For the busiest place you ever saw 

Will be the Path to Panama. 

Stand upon the dock w4th me 
In a year or two and see ! 

^Tilot," calls some Southern Star, 

"How much water on the bar?'^ 
"Forty feet or there about. 
Enough to float the navy out — 

With all the water you can draw. 

We're on the Path to Panama." 

Upon the Path to Panama! 

Where gulls have nuggets in their craw — 

Where Golden Gates are swinging free, 

And doughnuts ripen on the tree — 
Where fish have "silver sides" and skies 
Are painted rich with "Diamond Dyes" — 

And "swellest" tides without a flaw 

Will sweep the Path to Panama. 

And now's the time we're glad to be 
Upon this highway of the sea. 

'Tis Uncle Samuel's royal road, 

Where all the nations will "be showed," 
For the biggest fair you ever saw 
Will grace the Path to Panama. 

"So bring you ma and bring your pa" 

Along the Path to Panama. 



66 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



OEEGON HOLLY 

(Why should not Berberis Aquifolium, or Oregon Grape, 
become to our Pacific Coast what holly is to England? 
Could it not be suggestive of all the sentiments of patriot- 
ism, home and religion, and especially foster veneration for 
the pioneer, and all that is distinctively Western in spirit?) 

As holly tells of feudal days, 
Of yuletide feasts and laughter, 

So thou, the pride of Oregon, 
Shall trail thy glories after. 

When woodland flowers are all asleep 

And hazel wands are bare, 
You reign like some primeval chief 

Who oft has tented there. 

Your leaves are laundered by the rain. 

And glossed by winter's wing 
To garnish festive hall and home. 

And the temples of our King. 

Hast holly sharper spines than thou? 

Her leaves a richer hue? 
If she should boast of berries red. 

Boast thou of berries blue. 

And if perchance, from prestige proud. 

She does not grant your greatness. 
Then take this arrow and atone 
. For any charge of lateness : 

"O'er every sea the healed have sung 

The virtues of my root — 
Can English Mary's famous tree 

Make bitters from its foot?" 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 67 



Let holly reign in Britain's land 
And Scotland sing of heather; 

For ns, the grape of Oregon 

Has both their charms together. 

jg. ^ ^ 

BACK TO ALBANY 

A bird turned loose among the flowers, 

In the San Diego smi, 
Soon sighed to see the gentle showers, 

And struck for Oregon — 
About an hour, it seems to me, 

Till it arrived at Albany. 

A cat, blindfolded in the night 

Outside the college door, 
Was carried in a box car tight 

A thousand miles or more — 
The train was wrecked, but all agree 

The cat showed up in Albany. 

A man got dry, in this temperance town, 
And struck for a faster place — 

He wandered the nation up and down 
Till his purse was empty space — 

Then rode a "brake'' from Tennessee, 
To get back home to Albany. 

A native here once died, they say, 

And went to Paradise, 
He viewed it o'er in a listless way. 

With a look of sad surprise — 
Then formed a club and prayed to be 

Sent back to boost for Albany. 



68 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 




THE WESTWAED MARCH 

PRELUDE 

Beside some lost Alaskan lake, 
The Plover born in Spring ; 

Ere rising for his southward flight, 
Before the Winter King, 

First circles round his native ground 
To train his tender wing. 

Tlie lake is all the world to him, 

The world itself a dream; 
But instinct paints within his breast 

Some placid southern stream; 
And braver grown, he cleaves the zone, 

In Autumn's glint and gleam. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 69 

With kindling eye and pinion strong, 

At league on league laughs he; 
The mountain air is wine to him, 

And wine the heaving sea ; 
Until the Southland of his dream 

Becomes reality. 

So, modestly, Muse of mine, 

Unfold thy wings for me, 
And fed by ozone from on high, 

Emboldened thou shalt be. 
And Comrade true, whoe'er thou art. 

Lend us thy company. 

The voyage now for you and me 

Is still a way unknown. 
As westward round the globe we fly. 

In pathways all our own; 
Then shrink not at the Alpine blast. 

Or at the ocean's moan ! 

THE DEPARTURE 

As fairy Sleep her gos'mer wove 

Across my weary brain, 
Methought I saw an angel form, 

Come flying o'er the main. 
And pause upon my sleeping porch. 

And shake the dripping rain. 

She gently touched me on the brow. 

And whispered earnestly: 
^'Wouldst read the record of your race? 

Arise and fly with me — 
The earth is all ablaze with light. 

And man too blind to see !" 



70 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



I know not how I found my wings, 

I only know I flew — 
'Twas easy as the zephyr's wing, 

That sweeps the morning dew. 
My strange companion spoke again, 

As near my side he drew : 

"Progressns is my earthly name — 

Impulse I never lack; 
But ever onward keep my course. 

Across the zodiac." 
He touched my eyes and bid me look 

Along Earth's backward track. 

A flash ! A strange mysterious light ! 

I raised my eyes to look. 
As mists were rolled in heaps of gold 

While Morn her tresses shook, 
I saw the centuries unfold. 

As plain as any book. 

THE WESTERN SPIRIT BORN 

Behold a Pilgrim, staff in hand, 
With God alone his guest; 

He walks by faith the desert waste. 
The Promised Land his quest; 

He turns his back on ancient Ur — 
'Tis Abram going West ! 

The shifting ages onward march 

In stately steps sublime ; 
I see three Wise Men pass in view. 

Their camel bells a-chime, 
And in their hearts I read the quest 

Of the knighthood of all time. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 71 



Upon all pioneers of Truth 

Their mantles fall anon. 
The world's long night has Avaned at last, 

The East is streaked with dawn; 
A star hangs over Bethlehem, 

And westward beckons on. 

FOUR FAMOUS SEAS 

Thus westward ever leads the star 

Of human destinies, 
And sheds its fairest radiance 

Around four famous seas; 
And each is greater than the last, 

Like God's divine decrees. 

And first we see fair Galilee 

Where Jesus walked and talked. 

Dispensing Balm of Gilead 
Where sin and sorrow stalked. 

And saving sailors blanched with fear 
While in the storm they rocked. 

But Jordan's hills cannot enchain 

The Life divinely great. 
Behold ! He speaks ! Creation moves ! 

The nations march in state ! 
Jerusalem rejects her Lord — 

"Her house is desolate." 

Her treasure stores are moved to Eome, 
Like honey moved by bees; 

The restless spirit is released. 
And seeks for larger seas. 

Till Tiber's triremes press beyond 
The Gates of Hercules. 



72 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

The Levant soon is left behind 

For a wilder^ wider sea; 
The human current pours across 

Old Gaul to Brittany, 
And all the region throbs with life 

From Cork to Zuyder Zee. 

The nations catch the Wanderlust; 

It burns in every vein ; 
'Tis "Westward ho, with a rumbelo 

And hurrah for the Spanish Main" ; 
And the prow of Progress, westward bent. 

Shall ne'er turn back again. 

I hear the flap of the salty sail. 
And the shout of the gallant tars, 

As around the great Atlantic's rim 
They march like Sons of Mars, 

Until upon the western world 
They plant a flag of stars. 

Then caravans of pioneers 

Pushed westward still and on. 

Till the path ran into an Indian trail 
And the trail itself was gone ! 

They thought they saw the setting sun — 
'Twas only early dawn. 

The Star of Empire did not set. 

E'en at Pacific's brink; 
It blazed a chain of light across. 

Each Isle a golden link. 
Till drowsy Nippon's startled hosts 

At living fountains drink. 




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74 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

The king of oceans leashed at last ! 

And here shall heaven behold 
The grandest drama of all time 

Its mighty role unfold; 
And here the kingdoms of the earth 

Shall pour their filtered gold. 

THE CONQUEST OF THE FUTURE 

Is time no more, Pilot mine ? 

" ^Tis but begun/^ quoth he, 
"A thousand centuries with God 

Are but as yesterday" — 
And cycles rolled like dust of gold 

Above a silver sea. 

The great processional moved on 
Across the gulf of years; 

They scaled the walls of Prejudice, 
And sailed the sea of Fears ; 

They left a streak of light and love 
Where all was blood and tears. 

And in the vision I could see 
No clash of race or tongue — 

No discord in the marching step, 
Or in the song they sung. 

But with the stride of victory 
Around the earth they swung. 

CONCLUSION 

Mine eyes were opened then to see 

My messenger so meek. 
The angel of the Lord was he — 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 75 

I bowed to hear him speak : 
"God is himself the Holy Grail 
The nations blindly seek." 

Each renaissance the world has known 

AVas born at his behest; 
Brave Progress wears his symbol trne 

Upon a valiant crest; 
Disguised, God leads the column still 

In the spirit of the West. 

The world is all ablaze with light, 

But man's too blind to see. 
"And East is East and West is West/' 

But one the twain shall he. 
When the peace of God shall fill the earth 

As the waters fill the sea! 




"STILL BORE ALOFT THE BANNER BRIGHT, 
WHILE THUNDER CLOUDS WERE RIVEN' 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 77 



A SONG FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY 

Arise and shout, ye native sons ! 

And sing, ye daughters fair ! 
Your natal sun ascends the East 

And rides in glory there. 
And in the sky methinks I see 

A gay mirage of light 
Eeflected from a million flags 

With stars emblazoned bright. 

And let the eagle scream her joy 

Who, through the fateful years 
When war baptized the land with blood 

And washed it with its tears, 
Still bore aloft the banner bright, 

While thunder clouds were riven. 
Until it caught the falling stars 

From heaven in tribute given. 

And shout ! Ye millions foreign-born, 

Who sought this western world 
To pluck fair Freedom's rarest flowers 

And keep her flag unfurled. 
And let the echoes roll and roll, 

In a ravishing refrain. 
From sweet magnolias of the South 

To princely pines of Maine. 

Let Yukon's golden trumpet sound. 
And bells of freedom ring 

From every isle that nestles now 
Beneath the eagle's wing. 



78 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

Let cascades leap^, and ge^j^sers play, 

And oceans roar their glee, 
Till a tidal wave of liberty 

Shall roll from sea to sea ! 

1^ * * 

THE VISIT OF THE FLEET 

("There go the Ships." — David.) 

In a long majestic line against the sky 
I see the massive squadron marching by — 
Great bristling 2:)alaces of triple steel, 
But riding smooth as coots upon the keel. 

Each of the score, a fortress all complete. 
Could hide old Jason's Argonauts and fleet. 
Ten thousand men they bear, with shot and shell 
Enough to storm old Satan's citadel. 



'&' 



And see the clouds from vulcan chimneys rolled ! 
A mountain chain in ebony and gold. 
That floats as graceful on the lingering dawn 
As taAvny tresses of an Amazon. 

Green forests wave a welcome to our home. 
And eagles scream from old Sierra's dome. 
Let Shasta swing the Golden Gate and smile, 
AVhile Lick^ shall flash the news to Luzon's Isle! 

For old Balboa's ocean never bore 
A pageant half so grand as this before ; 
A thousand centuries she had to wait 
To see Columbia's fleet march by in state. 



'The Lick Observatory, California. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 79 

Sail on ! ye i^roiid policemen of the deep, 
While safely now Pacific cities sleep. 
Sail on ! Sail on ! till navies sail no more — 
Till the dove of Peace shall reign on every shore. 

^ ^ ^ 

THE CHRIST OF ARGENTINE 

(In 1898, war between Chile and Argentine having been 
averted by arbitration, a bronze statue of Christ was erected 
on the very summit of the Andes, on the disputed boundary 
line, as a monument of perpetual peace.) 

0, blood-red races, lift yonr eyes 

Toward the Southern Cross ! 
Two valiant rivals rise above 

The war clouds' direful loss. 

And these the lands that once' were torn 

By the bloody Almagro — 
Where freedom followed Bolivar 

A hundred years ago ! 

How oft they trod the crimson path 

The race itself hath trod, 
And trampled on the flower of Peace, 

That sacred fioAver of God. 

But now on Andes' dazzling height, 
The earth and heaven between. 

They lift the nations' arbiter — 
The Christ of Argentine! 

Then come, thou sturdy Southern sons. 

Receive thou each a star ! 
A nobler coronet you've won 

Than e'er was won in war. 



8o THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



Your nitrate beds and sulphur mines 

That fed the fumes of hell, 
Shall hurl a thousand blessings now, 

Instead of shot and shell. 

And bleeding Mercy, lift thy head ! 

The race will yet be free ! 
The Christ of Peace has been enthroned 

Where all the world can see. 

Grim prophet of the Golden Dawn, 

Majestic and serene. 
The snowy peak thy pedestal, 

Thou Christ of Argentine ! 

Let fair Aurora Australis 

Use all her magic light 
To paint a halo o'er thy head 

On winter's silent night. 

Then flash a signal to The Hague, 
And one to heaven be hurled; 

"The parliament of man appears, 
The federated world !" 

Forever hold thy regal throne. 
The earth and heaven between. 

Till all the tribes have joined their hands 
With Christ of Argentine ! 

^ ^ ^ 

HYMN FOR MEMORIAL DAY 

Lift your eyes to yonder city 
On the placid plains of Peace ! 

See the human river flowing 

In a stream that does not cease ! 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 8i 

'"Tis "the river that makes happy 

The city of our God/^ 
Where the priceless blood of freedom 

Never stains the sacred sod. 

Those the royal knights and noble 
Who once died to keep their tryst 

As they bound their country's colors 
Eound the banner of their Christ. 

See them passing through the portals ! 

See the epaulets they wear ! 
Kindred spirits, brave immortals, 

For the hero's home so fair. 

See the scarred and halting remnant 

Who their Captain's call await! 
Painfully the white procession 

Presses upward to the gate. 

But the ranks are ever filling 

With the souls who dare to die 
For their faith in God and country 

And a holy purpose high. 

Maids and mothers still are lifted 

In that sublimated love 
Where they live on lost caresses 

And the treasured hopes above. 

Still in tears they bid their warriors, 

"Go and battle for the right," 
While they brave life's long nightwatches 

That the land may have the light. 



82 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



And recruits will e'er be ready 

For the battles yet to be, 
Till a flag of truce is lifted 

Over every land and sea. 

^ ^ ^ 

MENTAL HOEIZONS 

T. Mr. Smallman — Selfishness. 

With the markets his spirits rise and fall, 
His sympathy stops with stomach wall. 

He would pull the world in his little shell, 

Nor glance to see who stood or fell. 
Both church and charity plead in vain, 
And a school tax simply raises Cain. 

But thanks to nature, few survive. 

Hatched in this Lillij^utian hive. 

II. Mr. Booster — Civic Pride. 

His interest leaps to the city line — 

"The civic weal," he cries, "is mine," 

And I cheer him on with a loud, "Amen !" 
But listen a moment, he's shouting again — 

"No neighbor town is worth a cent — 

They all are grafters — after rent — 

*^The coming London,' '^the Western Hub' — 
But the spokes are short — '^aye, there's the rul).' " 

He tries to boost his little town 

By knocking other boosters down. 

III. Mr. Wholecoast— The Western Spirit. 

But a larger soul rides in the list. 
And swings a lariat in his fist — 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 83 

(^Tis only a Jiabit from earlier date, 
For now lie is dealing in real estate) — • 

And he cries, ^'The West ! The wild, wide West! 

From Nome to Frisco, the last and best I" 
It tingles my blood like a veteran's gun, 
And I cheer for the land of the setting sun. 

IV. Colonel Spreadeagle — Patriotism. 

But I hear the tramp of a marching host; 
Then look l)eyond our far-flung coast 

As our spangled flag goes floating by. 

And freedom's shout ascends the sky; 
"America" we proudly sing, 
And the orator bears us on the wing : 

"Xo East, or West, no Xorth, or South, 

For the nation bought at the cannon's mouth !" 

V. Professor Whitepride — Race Prejudice. 

Anon approaches a critical sage, 

Unrolling the record from age to age. 
And cries in a cold and cynical whine, 
^'My brotherhood stops with the color line — ■ 

The Anglo-Saxon race for me — 

The race that was and is to be; 

Down with the rest, a mongrel herd, 
Whether Jap or German, Swede or Kurd !" 

VI. Brother Bigheart — Christianity. 

The creed I hold is too divine 
To be walled in by a color line. 

I praise the Lord for a humble place 

In the mighty Anglo-Saxon race. 



84 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

All circles of loyalty I prize, 

But a vaster vision greets my eyes. 

I shout for the East, I shout for the West — 

I shout for our nation God has blest, 
But my horizon is the race — 
Its radius great as God's own grace. 

From my heart's embrace I let none go, 

Whether man in the mansion, or "man with the hoe"- 
Hurrah for humanity's rich, red blood. 

That throbs its way to the throne of God. 

^ ^ ^ 

THE EAGLE EIDE; OE, SEE FIEST THY 
NATIVE LAND 

"The eye may well be glad that looks 
Where Pharpar's fountains rise and fall, 
But he who sees his native brooks 
Laugh in the sun has seen them all." 

I 

The bell tolled "Ten" ; then sang "Eleven" in glee 

And yet I mused. Then rising restlessly 
I gazed across the 'luring moonlit sea 

Where siren voices ever call. 
I held a "Tourist Guide" from lands afar, 
Adorned with Alpine staff and jaunting car — 
"I'Jl see earth's wonderland," I told a star, 
"From Hammerfest to Aspinwall." 

II 

The "Wanderlust" still gnawing at my mind. 
Upon my couch I carelessly reclined 
And slept. But suddenly a bird unkind, 
More weird than ever haunted Poe, 




'A BIRD . . . MORE WEIRD THAX EVER HAUXTED POE 



86 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

With flapping wing, against the window pressed — 
Then bursting through, the wild, uncanny guest 
Drew near, "Old Glory" floating from his crest. 
His tawny feathers flecked with snow. 

Ill 
Erect, defiant, like an outraged king 
He stood, as if a challenge he would bring, 
And execute with cruel threatening wing, 

Eude blood-stained claws and Eoman beak. 
His eye like liquid fire upon me gleamed. 
And with the same imperial pose he screamed, 
"See first thy native land," while proudly streamed 

His banner with those words in Greek. 

IV 

One "solar plexus" then I seemed to be — 

The earth spun round with such rapidity 

That Stars and Stripes was all that I could see. 

But, lo ! at length I seemed to glide 
Far inland from my cot beside the main. 
O'er seas of evergreen, till from the plain 
I saw Multnomah's cascades leap in vain 

And tumble in Columbia's tide. 

V 

But towering specter-like above the scene, 

Her glacier fields the earth and heaven between, 

We spied Mount Hood, enthroned as Western Queen, 

And near her stood her waiting maids. 
The Sisters Three, all sweet in gowns of white. 
But northward now my escort took his flight 
Above Bach's fabled "Bridge" — uncanny sight 

Of wild romance and Indian shades. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 87 

VI 

Soon Puget's waters in the moonlight glare — 
A sea ensnarled among the mountains there, 
It lay a-dreaming of the Yukon Fair, 

Earth's Mecca for the coming hour — 
A world of beauty cast in magic mold ! 
Arena for the races young and old, 
Where Eastern gem shall vie with Western gold 

For world supremacy and power ! 

VII 

The pale Olympics caught Boreas' beam, 
And like a line of turbaned gods, they seem 
To throw this legend on the night's wild dream : 

"See fair Columbia first of all." 
Soon Walla Walla's waving wheat I saw. 
Then Yellowstone's enchanted ground, in awe 
I viewed, and heard earth's hungry, hissing maw 

Belch forth Plutonian rage, and fall. 

VIII 

Old Faithful played "America," I know. 
And e'en the bear and elk and buffalo 
All seemed to snort their protest, ere I go 

Abroad in search of scenery. 
And burnt in living letters on the flag 
That backward bent like horns of flying stag. 
And echoing from the beetling mountain crag 

And borne by blizzards to the sea, 

IX 

I heard the same imperious command : 

"See first — see first — thine own — thy native land" ! 




H 
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THE WESTERN SPIRIT 89 

It rose and rolled like some celestial band 
O'er inland seas and sweeping plain — 

O'er Northern pines, and sighing cypress trees 

Where f reedmen chanted it upon the breeze, 

Till old Niag'ra, striking all lier keys, 
Roared forth the same sublime refrain. 

X 

Above this liquid tempest, wheeling wild. 

My winged steed disported like a child 

And shrieked: "Can Ehine or Ehone, or Poe so mild 

Exhibit one Xiag'ra Falls?" 
But eastward blown by some tremendous gust, 
We looked on marble pile and noble bust 
Where stately elms weep over Concord's dust — 

Our own Westminster's classic halls. 

XI 

Witli southward sweep o'er many a hero's tomb, 
We caught the breath of "Sweet Magnolias' bloom," 
And saw the Everglades awake from gloom 

To burnish bright their southern star. 
But seized by restless romance of the West, 
O'er Houston's far-flung plains he pushed his breast — 
Before "The Holy Cross" he bowed his crest. 

And lightnings flashed the scene afar. 

XII 

Old "Eagle City" first his homage drew, 
Then "Garden of the Gods" and "Manitou," 
And up the spiral road of Pike he flew — 
That conquered monarch of the air — 



go THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

And thrilled by kindred taste in building homes, 
He flapped his pinions o'er the cliff -built domes 
Where Toltec tribes have left their sphinxine gnomes 
To guard their ancient glory there. 

XIII 

Low swooping where the Colorado curled, 

With dipping wing, a hundred leagues he whirled 

Adown the one great canyon of the world. 

My heart was wild with native pride! 
Six thousand feet below the wond'ring sky ! 
Six thousand feet of terraces on high ! 
As if by Titans plowed in years gone by. 

The earth's bare breast lay open wide. 

XIV 

But soon "The City of the Angels" shone— 
Where nature, art, and gold conspire in one 
To fuse the fairest gem the world has known — 

One wilderness of wealth and flowers. 
The Golden Gate still guarded bay and brine. 
Her goddess radiant from her vulcan shrine. 
And over orange grove and mead and mine 

We swept, where King Sequoi towers. 

XV 

Past wild Yosemite's gorge my bird sped on — 
Old Shasta, like a white mirage was gone. 
And Crater Lake lay smiling at the dawn 

That crept across volcanic sand. 
I next expected Yukon's golden shore, 
But heard fair Ban don's breakers roar 
And mingle with a parting cry above my door — 

"See first of all thy native land." 




m 

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92 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



FATHEE HUCKLEBEERY AND THE 
AEEOPLANE 

Well^ 'Mandy, I got home alive, 
But it's Providence, I guess, 

For Baldy run the last two miles 
Like the "Limited Express." 

I knew he seemed to feel his oats, 
And still could jump a fence. 

But I supposed his fourteen years 
Had given him some sense. 

He got his Arab ginger up 

At Mulkey's water trough, 
And he's never liked that motor car 

Since they took the horses off. 

Aud then the wheels and auto-beels 
Were a-paintin' up the town. 

Till when I crossed them depot tracks 
I couldn't hold him down. 

I had that anxious feelin', 
Like the dove in Noah's ark. 

But I seemed to keep my bearin' 
Till I passed that Goltra Park. 

When suddently I heard a noise 
That nearly struck me blind, 

And saw a big new-fangled thing 
With a whirl-a-gig behind. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 93 



^Twas like a Salem Easter hat, 
With its double deck and riggin', 

And its yards of wire and canvas 
All a-jmnpin' and a-jiggin'. 

And settin' on the runnin' gear 

A-trailin' o'er the trees, 
Was a man a-ridin' on it 

As happy as yon please. 

I thought some "Open Eiver" craft 
Had blown up from resistance, 

And tried a-floatin' overland 
To shorten up the distance. 

It was puffin' at its engine, 
And a-flappin' of its wings, 

Like Old Nick himself was flyin' — 
And a lot o' other things. 

Then it kind o' dawned upon me. 
Since it didn't touch the ground. 

It must be Burkhart's air machine, 
A-aviatin' 'round. 

Of course, from force of habit, 
I pulled and hollered. Whoa! 

But it only made him hump himself, 
And you ought to see him go ! 

The buckboard tetered back and forth 

On a single wheel or two, 
And only hit the highest bumps. 

Like the scorchin' autos do. 



94 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



His tail streamed like the comet's tail, 
His ears were laid down tight — 

Why, no one needs an air machine 
When Baldy gets scared right. . 

So you can have Darius Green, 
If you keep him out the road, 

But I prefer the good old ground. 
And a little bigger load. 




FATHER HUCKLEBEEEY AT SEATTLE 

Well, I^ni takin' in Seattle, 
As the postal mark will show. 

And I've been here once before. 
But you wouldn't ever know. 

For tlie place has been a-changin' 
Like a girl of sweet sixteen. 

And a fourteen-story build in' 
Stands as stately as a queen. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 95 

And then little baby oceans 

That got tangled in the hills 
Caught the new "Seattle Spirit" 

And are runnin' boats and mills. 

And I kind 0' lose my compass, 
For the car lines twist like snakes 

Till I seem about to meet myself 
A-comin' round the lakes. 

Why, it's one conglomeration 

Of the city and the sea, 
And it makes me pause and wonder 

AVhat its destiny will be. 

As I watched a train, a-glitterin' 

Like a comet on the night, 
It dove beneath the city, 

And again appeared in sight. 

And they're diggin' out a channel 

To Lake Washington the sweet, 
Where the ships of Uncle Samuel 

Can come and wash their feet. 

And they took old Denny Mountain 

And they cast it in the sea. 
For their faith is mostly workin' 

And a-bringin' things to be. 

Of course the latest thing in Fairs 

Is the A. Y. P. unique — 
Where your dollars love to linger 

As you "pay 'em in a streak." 



96 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

I had watched the fiery serpents 
Climbin' up the Bon Marche 

And was loafin' ^roimd among the parks 
That bloom along the bay, 

When a measly little fellow 

Saidj a-squealvin' through his nose, 

^'Don^t it make a Beaver jealous 
The way Seattle grows?'' 

And I straightened up my shoulders 
Like a boy of twenty-two, 

And I said, ^'The Western Spirit 
Should be big enough for two." 

So here's to Portland and Seattle 
With their treasures and their trains. 

But they needn't knock each other 
'Cause they feel their growin' pains ! 



eg. jg- 'g. 



WEBFOOT m THE LEAD 

Well, I've been to see the capers 
That they're cuttin' at the fair. 

And you bet there's somethin' doing 
And old Webfoot's gettin' there. 

Why, I'd come to the conclusion 
That we'd kind o' gone to seed. 

And the other big exhibits 
Would be trottin' in the lead. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 97 



But you'd ought to see them fellers 
From the dried-up eastern slopes — 

Why, they call our cherries peaches, 
And our peaches cantaloupes ! 

And we have a little saplin', 
For to hold the flag, you see. 

And they nearly break their necks 
Just a-lookin' up the tree. 

And a feller lost his manners 

When he "watched Tacoma grow" — 

But a slab that we're a-showin' 
Did some growin' long ago. 

And there was Homer^ makin' pictures. 
And Miller^ makin' rhymes, 

(And a lot of other fellers 
That were there to make the dimes). 

And I said, "Trot out your talent 

With a pencil or a pen !" 
And it seemed to me that Webfoot 

Was a-gettin' there again. 

And talk about "Kentucky beauties'^ 
And "The lilies of the South"— 

Why, beside our Mossback maidens 
They're like roses in a drought ! 

And I saw some soldiers drillin' 
With an "M" upon their caps. 

And I heard the people sayin' 
"Them's a husky lot 0' chaps !" 



1 Homer Davenport. 2 Joaquin Miller. 



98 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



And when a Webfoot hits "the trail" 
With his knapsack on his back, 

Why, it's hard to find the feller 
That can make a bigger track. 




AXD THE OTHER BIG EXIIIRIT8 



jg- jg- jg- 



MY FIRST PIECE OF BEAIi 

In the fall of '95, 

While the boys were on the drive 
A-roundin' np the cattle on the range, 

A trapper friend of mine 

Caught a brnin, fat and fine. 
For the momitains of N"ehalem nothin' strange. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



99 



And lie cut me off a piece, 

And I fried it in the grease, 
And I thought I had a morsel very rare; 

But it smelled so kind o' funny, 

Like a mess of fish and honey — 
As I sized up my first piece of bear. 




But nothin' could be finer, 

And a hungry '^Forty-niner" 
Would have eaten more than that for his share ! 

But my stomach kept objectin', 

And I sorter sat reflecting 
Whether I could really eat a piece of bear. 



100 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

And it kept a kind o' stickin', 

And I thought I felt it kickin', 
As I swallowed at my first piece of bear; 

Then I braced against the table, 

With a look the ancient fable 
Said the Trojans in a battle used to wear. 

And I just shut my eyes 

And pounced upon my prize, 
Like I didn't have a minute for to spare ; 

And I guess it holds to reason 

That you needn't stop to season, 
When you get a fellow hungry as a bear. 

And oftentimes you'll find 

That your taste is in your mind 
When you're turnin' up your nose in the air; 

If you didn't know its name, 

You could eat it and be game, 
And not struggle with your first piece of bear. 

^ ^ ^ 

A HUSTLE FOE THE EAIE 

Come, hurry up. Sonny, 

And rustle your money ! 
No time to chase chipmunks if you're to be there ! 

And you, Mollie and Bess, 

Be a makin' that dress. 
For this is the summer we go to the Fair ! 

They'll have all o' them shows 
And nobody knows 
How big it will be till a fellow gets there ! 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT loi 



There's all the concessions 
From foreign possessions — 
And your quality cousins will be at the Fair ! 

The world's comin' our way, 
But sharpers they say 

Keep you watchin' your wallet and loaded for bear- 
But we'll camp on the "Trail" 
If it takes the last nail, 

For we've dug mighty hard to help fix for the Fair. 

Then hurry up, Johnny, 

And rustle your money. 
And get your new jacket and slick up your hair ! 

Turn the calf with the cow, 

And arrange it somehow 
So the last little Webfoot can go to the Fair. 

^ ^ ^ 

GLACIEE PARK 

At last we've reached the famous place 
Where panthers pant and glaciers glace; 

Where clouds float low and fish jump high, 
And icy summits pierce the sky; 

Where icebergs in a lakelet float. 
Where a boy's a boy, and a kid's a goat ; 

Where deer and "dears" play on the rocks. 
And the latter wear bisected frocks; 

Where the bighorn plays his sheepish tricks. 
And moose are not in politics; 




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THE WESTERN SPIRIT 103 

Where avalanches crack and creak, 
And Satan slides on "Heaven's Peak"; 

Where hell and heaven both are near, 
Where grub and greenbacks disappear; 



Where the tipsy tip the bottle, 
And the ladies tip the guide; 

And the packload tips the pony, 
Till he tumbles down the slide. 

Where a hotel is a "chalet," 
And a tourist is a "dude"; 

Where the porcupine pines 
When the tenderfeet intrude. 

eg. eg- jg. 

UNCLE ABE'S ADVICE 

You great, big loafin' darky ! 

A- whin in' like a whelp. 
While yo' neighbor's hay's a-spilin' 

'Case he can't git any help ! 
I want to tell yo', honey, 

De worl' won't treat you white 
If yo' wait to load yo' musket 

Till de possum is in sight. 

When yo' was a youngster, Isaac, 
Yo' wouldn't go to school, 

But played aroun' de barnyard 
Like a triflin', yearlin' mule. 



104 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

Yo' wouldn't work nor learn a trade, 
Now, when de day's half done, 

Yo'se a-huntin' for life's possum 
Wid a little empty gun. 

Quit yo' grumblin' 'bout yo' chances ! 

Shed dat coat and grab dat fork ! 
Even white folks should go hungry 

When dey git too good to work. 
Stuff a little amernishun 

In dat woolly head to-night — 
Bettah always do yo' loadin' 

'Fore de possum is in sight. 

^ ^ ^ 

TO AN EDITOR 

(On the Return of a Manuscript.) 

So my '^'lines are too heavy" — you "want something 

light"— 
"With less of humanity's battle for right" — 
"With more of the jingle, and less of the march" — 
You want it like linen without any starch ! 

"Just touches of fancy," "without any fun" — 
That wilts like an onion leaf out in the sun ! 
Just gushes of "sentiment" — mushy and thin. 
That won't provoke thinking, or even a grin. 

Your "popular writers" apparently think 
That poetry's nothing but rhyming and ink. 
With no sweep of the fancy, no food for the brain, 
They drizzle on smoothly like Oregon rain. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 105 

They must rise and strike fire with their rhythmical lyre, 
Or their tame little ditties are born to expire. 
Why if rhymiiig, not climbing, is all there is to it, 
I can write it myself — I've a notion to do it. 

I'm inclosing a sample — an ample example — 
Of somid without sense, not worth a sixpence. 
I hope it will suit, for it scarce could be worse 
Than reams of the stuff you are printing for verse. 

1^ «■ * 

THE EMPTY GUN 

(Suggested by the numerous accidents from guns that 
were supposed to be empty.) 

You may loop the loop, and leap the gap, 
You may bump the bumps, and trap the trap, 
You may shoot the chutes, and scoot the scoot^ 
And dive the dive in a parachute; 

You may run an auto through a train, 
And skim the sea in an aeroplane. 
You may mount a buffalo on the run. 
And then get killed b}^ an empty gun. 

You may rob the rattler of his skin, 

And pull the beard on a lion's chin. 

You may wade through blood, and swallow fire, 

And brave an Irish woman's ire; 

You may crook the crooks at the 'Frisco fair. 
And sell your gizzard to a millionaire 
And live it through and think it's fun, 
But you can't get by the empty gun. 



io6 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



EUEAL PEOGEBSS; OR, WE'EE LIVIN' 'MOST 

IN TOWN 

So you're sorry for us fellows 

With the hayseed in our hair, 
As you see tlie world's procession 

Leave us hangin' in the air ! 

And you think I'd trade this homestead 

For a little '^fifty feet" 
Down among the dingy buildin's 

At the foot of Market Street? 

Now I want to tell you, stranger, 
While my dinner settles down. 

That us farmers in the country 
Are a-livin' 'most in town. 

Why the horses used to caper 

When they saw a little bike. 
Like they thought "Old Nick" himself 

Was a-ridin' up the pike. 

Now, when they meet an auto, 

As it's puttin' on the style 
On our gilt-edged granite highway, 

They seem to kind o' smile. 

Like they think it must he winded. 

As its breathin' is so loud. 
And they wonder if it's rattled 

From the racket o' the crowd. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 107 



And we get your city daily 

By the handy R. F. D., 
While the Mexicans are chasin' 

One another up a tree. 

And John is in the college — 
How it stirs a father's pride ! 

For he's captain of the football, 
And takes learnin' on the side. 

And Mary's takin' music — 
(Kow she calls herself Marie), 

And has all the variations 
As far as I can see. 

And we have the very preacher 
That last year preached for you, 

For he's restin' in the country. 
Just as others ought to do. 

We are phonin' to the neighbors. 
And a motor line's projected. 

And they'll fire a "wireless" at us 
If we are not soon protected. 

And we're raisin' coreless apples 
To take with us to the fair, 

And we'll harness up our trotters 
And will beat the motor there. 

But when we're tired of tumult 
And a-campin' on "The Trail," 

We will strike for clover blossoms 
And the pipin' of the quail. 



io8 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

And while eatin' Jersey butter 
And a-layin^ in the shade 

We will pity that poor fellow 
That was anxious for a trade. 

I want to tell you, stranger, 
While my dinner settles down. 

That us farmers up the valley 
Are a-livin' 'most in town. 






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no THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



MEMORY^S DREAM 

I dreamed a dream — but who can tell 
If breathed from heaven or born in hell ! 

There glided from the wings of night 
An angel fair — a shrouded sprite. 

These mismatched ghosts of joy and jDain 
Danced hand in hand across my brain — 

Together sang a sad sweet song 

Of bliss divine and speechless wrong. 

They both upon my heart-strings played, 
O'er tender scars and wounds new made. 

Their mystic music filled the air 

Like lover's laugh and martyr's prayer — 

Both blent in one, for evermore 
They sobbed against the silent shore. 

When I awoke my cheeks were wet — 
The old-time pain was ling'ring yet, 

But, as the tread on flow'ret fair 
Distills the fragrance hidden there. 

Those grief-born shadows of the past 
Were with a halo overcast. 

And thus I clung to weal and woe — 
They both were mine and must not go ! 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT in 



MEDITATION 

My life is such a dream as this ; 
A blighted hope — a honeyed kiss ; 

A somber cloud — a radiant ray ; 
A spectral night — a gilded day. 

As wayward children break the heart 
But still within it hold their part ; 

As pearls are born with price of pain, 
But i^recious grow as they remain. 

So wounds that tortured once the soul 
Now helj) complete the perfect whole. 

Anon we view the fitful years 
And find the rainbow in the tears. 

The sting of sorrow now is gone, 

The night of gloom has burst in dawn. 

The blighted hopes have taken wings 
To lift my soul to higher things. 

^ ^ ^ 
TRANSITION 

With girlish dress 

And fond caress 
She sat upon her father's knee. 

And whispered oft 

In accent soft, 
"You're the only man in the world for me." 



112 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

Two twelvemonths passed — 

He hastened fast 
To meet his little girl once more. 

But breathed a sigh 

And wiped his eye 
To find a woman at the door. 

But on his knee 

As tenderly 
As e'er of old she made her plea, 

And whispered sweet, 

"Just you — and — Pete 
Are the only men in the world for me." 

^ ^ ^ 

LOVE'S INTERPEETATION 

A maiden sat beside the sea 
And turned the pages wearily 
Of a booklet in her hand, 
Then threw it on the sand 
And sighed, " ^Tis dry as dry can be !'' 



Again she sat upon the sand — 
The selfsame book was in her hand. 

But she feasted on the line 

As if it were divine. 
And cried, " ^Tis charming ! simply grand !" 

What can the wondrous secret be — 

This metamorphic mystery? 
For 'twas on her finger ends. 
And she wrote it to her friends 

And even san^ it to the sea. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 113 

SOLUTION 

The lense of love had caught her eye 
Transforming all the pages dry 

To rainbow glory, for you see, 

The slighted author proved to be 
Her lover — that was why and why. 

MEDITATION 

The Book of books is in my hand, 
Its fame has flown to every land, 

And above the vengeful roar 

Of the storm along life's shore 
Eings an anthem rich and grand. 

Would you find a treasure when you look, 
A hidden flower in every nook. 

Till it blooms from lid to cover. 

While a halo hovers over ? 
Fall in love with the Author of the Book ! 



^ 5^ ^ 



MY BABY SISTER HAS A BEAU 

Of all the changes back at home. 

One thought keeps surging to and fro — 

It seems so very, very strange 
That baby sister has a beau. 

Although the w^orld is like a dream. 
And years like shadows come and go. 

It does seem hardly possible 

That little Mabe can have a beau. 







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THE WESTERN SPIRIT 115 



It makes me think I'm getting old. 
For I was grown you know 

When I was teaching her to spell — 
And now they say she has a bean 1 

I hear a lisping toddler say, 

"Where yon goes I w^ants to go" — 

With l)ib and blocks and fuzzy head, 
She didn't know the name of "beau, 



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But while the days have slipped away 
The child's had time enough to grow — 

She's seventeen, and tall and fair — 
Why yes, of course, she has a beau ! 

But while I smile to think of it, 
'Tis serious too, because I know 

That heartaches often follow on, 
When girls begin to have a beau. 

^ ^ ^ 

THE SUMMERTIME OF LOVE 

Sweep gently o'er the chords dear. 

Until I get the key 
For a little summer love song 

Just meant for you and me. 

The dove still sings his love note 
E'en with their nestlings three, 

And this night-wind woos the cedar, 
Then why should I not thee ? 




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THE WESTERN SPIRIT 117 



If plaintive little Philomel 

Can serenade alone, 
How could I keep from singing 

^Mid treasures all my own 







The May of love was ravishing 
With bud and promise rife, 

But fruit and flowers mingle 
In the summertime of life. 

'Twas sweet in nuptial springtime 
To watch your soulful eyes 

Send back their lovelit flashes 
Like heralds from the skies. 

But as now they gently linger 
On a little upturned face, 

I can read a deeper luster 
And a heavenlier grace. 

And while you hold another hand, 
And a fairer brow caress, 

The little lullaby you sing 
Is part for me I guess ! 

^Ye're a little nest of love birds. 
For notes almost divine, 

From your downy-headed thrushes, 
Are chiming in with mine. 

And our home's a little corner 

Of the paradise above. 
For our love is growing warmer 

In the summertime of love. 



ii8 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



FOESAKEN 
(A rejected lover sits writing by the seashore.) 

My heart is far too sad to sing, 
And yet the mnse would take its wing 

For one short flight, 
As if to bear my thoughts away 
From burning brain and trend )ling clay, 

And Love's long night. 

But comrades call me in their glee : 
"Come listen to the happy sea, 

It laughs and plays." 
I hark and only hear the moan 
Of dying Love, as on a stone 

She sobs and prays. 

"But look ! Across the liquid arch 
Old Day's battalions gayly march 

With banners bright." 
I strain my eyes and look in vain. 
But only see a somber train 

Sink into night. 

'Tis vanquished Hope, upon her bier 
And yet alive to feel and fear 

And bleed and sigh. 
And trailing in her fading beam, 
I see ambition's fondest dream 

Droop down and die. 

And drifting on that sobbing tide 
With broken love is all beside — 
Perhaps my mind. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT iig 

My sun sinks low but will not set, 
The darkness deepens fast, and yet 
Love still is blind. 

It must not be ! It cannot ])e ! 
My soul itself is one wild sea. 

No shore in sight. 
Hark ! E'en the sea gulls seem to cry : 
"Your love must die ! Your love must die !" — 

Then cease their flight. 

The diamond dewdrops are but tears 
From yesterday, the ghost of years. 

O'er blisses brief. 
And this is all she left for me — 
Despondency ! despondency ! 

A galling grief. 

£' «&' £' 

ION 

Come hark to the story of Ion, 

Of Ion, the Grecian of old — 
Whether fiction or fact will not trouble 

Since a legend the story has told. 

His mother was Creusa the princess. 

His father the handsome Apollo — 
jSTo wonder from fountain so noble 

A streamlet of genius should follow. 

And he captured the i^eople of Athens, 

By his song like a magical spell, 
And he captured the prizes they offered 

By his tragic creations as well. 



120 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

But one of his hearers romantic 
Was a maiden as fair as an elf. 

Who soon became subject and object, 
And he was a captive himself. 

But while in his youth and his laurels 
His face became furrowed with care, 

And seeking the shrine of his father 
He inquired of the oracle there. 

And pale with premonitive omens. 

While a message of love he was sending, 

He heard the unchangeable verdict 
That a violent death was impending. 

And thinking Patara and Aba 
Could never a falsehood tell. 

He rushed to the maiden beloved 
To bid her a fond farewell. 

She listened in silence and trembled 
As trembles a wounded fawn. 

Then lifted her face all pallid 
Like Pity awaiting the dawn. 

And hushing her sobs of anguish 
She gazed across the wave. 

And asked that race-old question, 
"Can we meet beyond the grave?" 

He replied : I have asked the questions 
Of the birds and flowers vernal — 

Of the streams that flow forever 
And the hills that look eternal. 

I have asked it again of the heavens 
x\s I walked in fancy there. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 121 

And out of its azure stillness ^^ 
Came no answer to my prayer. £ -Ifc.^ 

But now your face 1)eholding 

Which is fairer than gem-lit skies, 

As I read the immortal longings 

In the depth of your tear-dimmed eyes, 

I am conscious within of a kinship 
With the gods in their heme on high, 

For our love has transcended the mortal 
And never, no never, can die. 

And the heart of my heart is crying 

Of a region heyond our ken — 
I must die if the Fates decree it. 

But / Icnow we shall meet again. 

And thus with a faith triumphant, 

Outfiying the laggard years. 
Stood Ion the fated lover 

Till the maiden dried her tears. 

We hope that the witch was a liar. 

That the two were made happy in time, 

But the height of their love was holy. 
And the leap of their faith sublime. 

And methinks all ancient sages 
Who walked in their highest light 

Will some day stand immortal 
With us who walk by sight. 

I challenge the heresy hunters ! 

Let them make of it what they may, 
But the God I worship is Just, 

And Justice will find a wav. 



122 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

THE EPIC OF THE AGE " 

(I used to write poetry, and prefer that mode of expres- 
sion; but it won't sell, and romance will. — An Oregon 
Authoress.) 

I. The Unpopularity of Poetry 
Must modern harps be hung upon the tree 
Of arts forgotten in a sordid age, 
Too gross to feel the nobler passions of the soul? 
Will fair Columbia's children always bow 
To sensual altars and the golden calf? 
Must blind commercialism force the pen 
To cast her genius in the coins of trade? 

11. The Theme of the Unwritten Poem 

"Xo theme, no poet, and no audience" 

Seems echoing from a thousand critic throats ! 

And yet methinks the muses are not dead, 

And theme sublime as ever stirred the soul 

Awaits the master touch of genius. 

Has beauty faded or has love grown cold ? 

Were "Isles of Greece" more fair than Nippon Land 

That smiles like child awakened from its sleep ? 

Or Homer's horde more brave than Saxon blood ? 

Ulysses than the hero of Manila Bay? 

Are there not "Holy Grails" of truth to seek, 

And "Troys" of wTong full worthy of thy steel? 

Eor ample action of heroic type 

Could grander stage be built across the dome 

Of heaven itself than Lick reveals to us? 

Has't all been told? The earth a threadbare tale? 

Did e'er the wond'ring eyes of Yirgil see, 

E'en in his wdldest dream, such fleets superb 

Of floating palaces as we behold? 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 123 

What more adventurous land than that which sleeps 

White-robed beneath Boreas^ shimmering light 

Where unknown Yukons roll o'er beds of gold ? 

Is this not food for poets or for gods ? 

Is one purblind, and ignorant of what 

Comprises art, who calls it rich romance? 

Is there no rhythm in the iron horse 

That gallops o'er the continents, and trails 

His meteoric splendor through the night, 

While wireless wizards bear on ether wings 

The pulsing passions of a list'ning world ? 

III. The Coming Poet 

Is there no Homer for the age of gold ? 

No Pilgrim pen to trace the tragedy 

Of social "Paradises Lost" and gained, 

And marshal nations in a grand review ? 

Not mine the golden pen immersed in light 

To trace fair Truth ui3on the umbral sky — 

Not mine the Atlas shoulders that shall bear 

The pregnant century's living load — 

Not e'en the melic voices that adorn 

The rich neglected pages of our day, 

But somewhere now methinks there dreams a youth 

At times convulsed with energies divine, 

"That with no middle flight intends to soar" 

Above the common peaks that now appear — 

The faithful harp, on which the age can play 

Her regnant passions and her fitful moods — 

The mouthpiece of our matchless century ! — 



124 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 




SIXG OUT IIS^ THE SUNLIGHT 

(A protest against what the author regards as a com- 
mon overuse of the gruesome, occult, and erotic elements in 
literature.) 

Sing out in the sunlight, ye poets of men ! 
Too oft ye have groped in the cloister and den. 

The sunny "Lucile" you have driven between 
The walls of a convent, a sad ^'Seraphine." 



Too long ye have chosen the subject uncanny 
And shrunken a heroine into a granny. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 125 



Why that "ebony veil and mysterious face" ? 
Did not nature intend that freedom should grace 

The fair form of woman ? When a model God made, 
It was not a pale spinster who wept in the shade, 

But a flesh-and-blood woman in God's out-of-doors, 
Who eats when she's hungry (and probably snores). 

"Not poetic," you say, but I pen it with pride — 
She's a buxom young matron, with ba])ies beside. 

This only was wrong with Eden's fair type — 

She picked apples of pleasure before they were ripe. 

The real is poetic, red blood has a charm. 

Soft cheeks are abnormal unless they are warm. 

Must romance e'er be darkened by Clandestine's veil ?- 
Each boat on life's sea have a sin-tainted sail? 

'Tis sin that is prosy — dead consciences jar. 
But Virtue chords sweetly, and shines like a star. 

Come out of your dungeons, ye bards of "Chillon" ! 
Ye "nocturnal orgies," arise and be gone ! 

Xo "oracles" need we, our omens to read, 

But the brain and the Book and the Spirit to lead. 

Instead of a robin, ye coax to your door 

Some nondescript "raven with weird nevermore." 

Too oft have ye haunted the cavern of Doubt — 
That modern Avernus — and never came out. 



126 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

And more dallied near some C'harybdian verge, 
Till they only could cliant a knell and a dirge. 

The air is a-throb with shafts for yonr pen, 
Tlien out of the shadows, ye leaders of men ! 

Less of selfish Chorazin in story and song, 
More of Bethany beauty to cheer us along ! 

Why dig up the mummies and rattle their bones? 
Why seek the seance and the Cabala stones ? 

Why dazzle with limelight the fancy of youth, 
While millions are dying for sunlight and truth ? 

that Byron and Shelley and Kipling and Poe 
Had fed on the sunlight till hearts were aglow ! 

What chaplets of glory could not they have won ! 
What mortal could measure the good they had done ! 

Give us more of the health of your heart and your brain ! 
Give us more of the wealth of a woodland refrain! 

Hail Carleton and Eiley ! a rollicking team, 

Who have skimmed the creation to feed us the cream ! 

Hail Miller, McFarland, Sam Foss, and Van Dyke, 
And lengthen the list as long as you like. 

Tlieir wings may not soar with the masters of old. 
But their voice is not chilled by aerial cold. 

Sweet voices, let none of their banners be furled 
Till they waken some Homer to sing for the world. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 127 



Then out in the sunlight ye singers of men, 
Let Faith and her sisters have freedom again! 

Give us less of the gruesome, and more of the gold 
Filtered out of the fireside, with flocks in the fold. 

^ ip- ^ 



THE ARABIAX HOESE 

You ask, "Whence came the Aral) horse, 

That pride of every land, 
Which Davenport has sought anew, 

From the Sultan's royal hand T] 

Then list, a tale of old Tahah, 

Which they tell the children there. 

As around the mosque they linger 
For the Moslem's call to prayer. 



A legend wild of Islam's land 

Of desert heat and death. 
It comes with scent of mint and myrrh, 

And warm Sirocco's breath. 

Mohammed and a hundred sheiks 
By Bedouin bandits pressed. 

Were mounted on the noblest steeds 
That maidens e'er caressed. 

From early morn, till morn again 
Came shimmering o'er the sand. 

Not e'en a drop of dew refreshed 
The swiftly flying band. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 129 

On, on the second day they sped 

Beneath the hrassy sky, 
Their spreading nostrils seared with dust, 

With swollen, bloodshot eye. 

And reeled they now beneath their load. 

And slower grew their pace. 
And low the lordly heads were hung. 

And low the necks of grace. 

But see ! They halt and sniff the air 

From a wady down below; 
"Dismount !^^ the swarthy chieftain cries, 

"And let the horses go !" 

And fired to frenzy by their thirst. 

And the rippling song of hope, 
They dash away wdth snort and neigli 

Adown the rocky slope. 

But ere the tethers scarce were loosed. 

There came the sickening cr}^ — 
"Come back ! The foe appears again ; 

Mount ! Mount again and fly V 

But they flung defiance on their heels, 

Nor heeded curse nor call — 
Save six alone, who sadlv turned 

And climbed the glistering wall. 

And each obeyed his master's voice. 

But strove to speak his pain 
With stifled neigh and nodding head 

And salt-incrusted mane. 



130 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

^'Mark each one well and let him go !" 

The admiring j)rophet cries; 
"Such loyalty must be repaid, 

E'en though Mohammed dies/' 

They slaked their thirst ; they lived and thrived, 

And bore Abdallah's name, 
And from this breed of grace and speed 

Our modern trotters came. 

But English pride and Yankee fire 

Refined the Arab gold. 
And breathed the winds and lightnings 

In these forms of classic mold. 

So Alcazar and Cresceus — 

Mambrinos, Pachens — all 
Eun through the famous Rysdyk line 

To the Sultan's royal stall. 



^ ^ ^ 



OLD SQIJIEES 

Old Squiers weighed two hundred pounds 

x\nd thirty more to spare, 
But his boy was like his mother's folks, 

All peaked, pale, and fair. 

And he drove an aged buckskin mare, 

Hipshot and lame beside. 
But the road would never get too steep 

For Squiers himself to ride. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 131 

And every time he passed our house 

They had a hill to climb, 
And Squiers would make the boy get out 

And walk up every time. 

"For 'tis a dirty shame/' he said, 

As he stopped to let her blow, 
"For us big fellows both to ride, 

And pull the critter so." 

The Squiers tribe are not all dead — 

They want the weak to climb, 
While their big hulks of thrice the weight 

Must ride up every time. 

J^ !& £" 

SUBUEBAN LIFE 

Across his field the farmer trudged 
In the hard old-fashioned way — 

Through Winter's mire 

And Summer's fire 
For thirteen hours a day. 

And his wife bore a heavier burden. 
And shortened life's little span 

As mother, and nurse. 

And cook, and worse. 
As a sort of a hired man. 

And the cry went up from the country : 
"0 City, give us your light. 

And your captive fire 

That speeds the wire 
AVith the news at morn and night. 



132 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 




WHERE THE CITY AND COUNTRY MEET 

"And give us the spirit of Progress, 
For we covet the highest goal. 

With harnessed powers, 

Give respite hours 
To garnish the mind and soul." 

But the city itself was a Prison 
With its rush and din and strife — 

With the stifling air 

And the sordid glare 
Of an artificial life. 



And the City cried : "0 Country, 
Give us of your magic wealth — • 

The bells at dawn 

On the clover lawn 
And the riches of home and health — 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



133 



"And the russet robes of Autumn, 
Afar from the stress and strain, 

Where flocks of sheep 

Like billows creep 
Across the rolling plain." 

And the Angel of Life made answer : 
"Make the lot of both complete !" 

And he poured the cream 

Of each extreme 
AVhere the city and country meet. 

So the City and Country were wedded 
And none can put them apart, 

For the blush of health 

And the glow of wealth 
Is the blending of mead and mart. 

Now, life is a bridge of glory 
On which the angels stand. 

And heav'n bends down 

With a jeweled crown 
For the child of the City and Land. 




"life is a bridge or glory" 



134 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

A MAN OF FORTY 

I stood in childhood's narrow vale 
And viewed the steep and sinuous trail 
That like a serpent seemed to climb 
O'er hazy heights and peaks sublime 
Until the pinnacle it passed — 
The Mount of Middle Life at last— 
The age of forty. 

And with a halo o'er his head, 
A victor o'er the summit sped 
All glorious in life's noonday sun, 
Adorned with stars and medals won, 
While rainbow-tinted on a cloud 
This legend seemed to shout aloud: 
"A man of forty!" 

So far it seemed to boyhood's eye, 
That gilded summit in the sky ! 
Could I e'er live so long, and wait 
That outpost of the Golden Gate? 
1 sighed and ran and longed to be 
x\s grand as father seemed to me — 
A man of forty. 

But I awake this morn to find 
I've passed that milepost of the mind, 
And stand amazed that I am still 
Much as I was below the hill — 
The long-tailed coat and bearded chin 
Do only hide the boy within 
The man of forty. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 135 

Some childish things we put away, 
But more cling to us when we're gray. 
How much of wisdom yet ungained ! 
Like ant-hills are the heights attained ! 
Life's mountain peaks are still uncrowned — 
The rainbow tints are still beyond 
This man of forty. 

Though owlish Osiers view their slain, 
Ambition lives and tugs his chain ; 
Hope gathers up the broken stran' 
To weave the fabric of a man — 
Though seamed and soiled the garment be, 
God yet can work a mystery 
On one of forty. 

jg. jg- jg. 

A NEW SONG OF THE MILL 

In youth we sang "The Song of the Mill" 
As the pygmy power of a playful rill 

Was turning the rustic buhrs around. 
And slow as an hour-glass ran the wheat 
While a boy and horse — a team complete — 

Awaited their sack when the grist was ground. 

But to-day we sing of a rolling maze 
Of flying belts and bolts and stays — 

Of modern man's inventive power. 
While from a score of puffing throats 
We load the massive trains and boats 

With gilded sacks of "Gold Dust Flour," 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 137 

A<iaiii we sano- "The Sono- of the Mill" 
As another wheel ])eiieath the hill 

Was wearil}' weaving its wreaths of spray, 
And a primitive saw plied up and down 
Through a log by plodding oxen drawn, 

Till they hauled the day's output away. 

But our song to-day is of grander stamp — 
Of a hundred loggers in a camp, 

And three hundred thousand feet })er day, 
Of whirling saws and flying bands, 
And schooners laden for distant lands, 

And heaving booms across the bay. 

^ ^ ^ 

A rOET'S APTEAL FOR THE XATUEAL 

I 

A"ou may hover round the drowsy hearth, 

And breed inertia if you will, 

With all the swarm of kindred ills — 

And pills — Give me the open air ! 

Give me Xature, even though it means 

To face alone her fiercest moods. 

I'd drink the ozone of the storm. 

And step in Old Boreas' tracks 

As he walks with giant swing and stride, 

Calk-shod, across the continent. 

II— The Trees 
And I love the shaggy bark on trees. 
What if 'tis coarse, and tawny-hued. 
And torn by Winter's tomahawk ! 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 139 

A planing knife would make it seem 
A stilted, artificial thing. 

And let the fir grow skyward. 

^Tis compasslike, and meant to point 

Its needle to the zenith pole, 

And not to squat squaw-like, with all 

The primal instincts chained or killed. 

To change a towering monarch to 

A shingle-headed dwarf is monstrous. 

ISTor daub with paint the graining of 
Its wood. Would Guido vie with God 
In sketching witch-like tracery 
Upon the bird's-eye maple or 
The Douglas fir? 

And yet methinks I hear one say : 

"Old Nature's face is plain — his beard 

Is not the latest cut." I stoop 

Not for apology, but cry: 

"To sheer Time's locks, or shave his face 

Disfigures what you would refine !" 

Ill — The Mountains 
And measure not our mountain peaks 
By water-power and cash accounts. 
Wouldst thou tear Tacoma's ermine crown 
From oft' his beetling Eoman brow, 
And whittle down the brow itself 
To man-made terraces ? 

Must old Niagara cease to sing, 
And leap in frenzied glory from 
His Alpine heights — to run a belt? 



140 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

'Tis but Philistine cruelty — 

The boring Samson's eyes, to make 

A slave a-grinding at a mill ! 

Hear ye, blind iconoclasts ! 

Leave some rare spots upon the globe 

AMiere man can read God's primal law, 

And trace his signature in stone ! 

lY— The Horse 
For native rhythm, and poetry 
Of motion, there's nothing like the horse. 
Think not of proper, prosy nag 
That shambles down the city street, 
With all the equus fire burnt out ! 
Give me the Texan of the plains — 
The long, lithe, red-nostriled kind, 
With eyes white-framed, and bearded cliin- 
With wind like tireless hurricane — 

. The untamed Spirit of the West, 
With heart half devil and half man, 
That keeps you hopping when you mount, 
And gallops wolf-like with the wind. 
Ah, this is poetry itself — 
The rhythmic thrill and throb of life, 
No chuggy-chug of mere machine ! 
This is old Pegasus himself. 
And more, for oft methinks that all 
The muses of the mystic Nine 
Became incarnate in the horse. 

Far better this for poet heart 
Than all the coin-cast plays. 
With artificial stage, and mob 
Of money-mad and pleasure-crazed. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 141 



Let me gallop on and on, into 

The mystic table-land of Night, 

Where fade from sight all marks of man. 

And now I walk my horse and gaze 

Into the starry pastnre lands 

That hang o'erhead — and hark ! I hear 

Above the tinkle of my spurs 

The frozen echoes of the clang 

Of steel, as in the icy still 

The Great Bear drags his clinking cliain 

Across the trembling firmament. 

^ ^ ^ 

THE CALL OF THE COAST 

Let the roar go up from the city ! 
Let the armies of Greed surge on ! 

But give me the roar 

Of a surf -bound shore. 
Where Liberty greets the dawn. 

Let the roar go up from the city ! 
I^et them jostle for place and power ! 

But give me the shade, 

Where God has made 
The moss in the laurel bower. 

Let the roar go up from the city ! 
Some are wed to the luxuries there, 

But wild and free 

As a hawk I'd be. 
In an emerald forest air. 



142 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 




Let the roar go up from the city ! 
From a life that is stilted in pain, 

Till the glimmer and gleam 

Of Society's dream 
Shall tremble and break with the strain. 

God pity the poor in the city, 
Whose hearts on their hinges rust — 

Who sigh for the trees 

And the ocean breeze 
But are chained in the heat and dust. 

Let the roar go up from the city ! 
'But soon there shall ascend 

A note more clear, 

And deep, and dear. 
When a man in God shall blend, 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 143 



And the trailing mists of the morning 
Shall usher the gladsome hours, 

When human art 

With Xature's heart 
Shall strew the earth with flowers. 



^ ^ ^ 



THE MIXISTRY OF XATUEE ; OR, THE 
TEMPLE SERVICE OF THE SEASONS 

Pkelude 

Ordained of God to preach the truth to men, 

The universe itself a temple vast, 
Sweet Nature, changing vestments now and then, 

Conducts one service while the twelve months last. 

For, ere God's finger touched the sacred stone 
That gave the Law to Moses and the race. 

His praise through aeons rolled from zone to zone- 
The seasons four, one grand quartet of grace. 

Then come with rev'rent heart and list'ning ear. 
Attend the service this fair priestess brings. 

Although perchance a minor note we hear 
E'en while the choir a Jubilate sings. 

Spring 

The spring is Nature's convocation time. 

The temple, garlanded from nave to dome, 
AYill hold an oratorio sublime 

Proclaiming that the King of kings has come. 



144 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 




The waking world for worship seems to yearn. 

Buds burst tiiemselves in over-ecstasies, 
Till incense flows from many a flowret urn, 

To blend with balsam from the balmy trees. 
Hark ! Myriad bells announce the hour of song, 

As bird and blade and every living thing 
Calls to our fallen race, a dull-eared throng: 

"God lives, and life is yours — arise and sing.'- 

The treble of the winged choir we hear, 
AYith soft contralto of the swaying tree. 

While tenor tones of rippling waters near 
Blend with the hollow basso of the sea. 



Summer 

Green-sandaled Spring no longer walks the lea — 
The em'rald belt he bound about his bride 

Now turns to gold beneath the alchemy 

Of her whose wand shall still the worship guide. 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



145 



The summer is her hour of argument. 

The sermon grows more powerful and intense, 
Convincing all beneath God's cloud-girt tent, 

If tliey hut listen ere their summons hence, 

That God in wisdom made the world complete; 

Tliat all may dwell in Him when earth is done. 
And lo, like quiv'ring plains of noontide heat, 

Their fiery zeal has risen with the sun. 

The vast assemblage, filling earth and sky, 
Breaks forth. Kare anthems rise and roll. 

^'Forget not all his benefits/' they cry, 

Wliile eclioes answer, "Bless the Lord, my soul!'' 




AUTUMI^ 

The altar service of the ripening year. 
When pious Nature makes her solemn call ! 

Tlie rustling of her surret robe I hear. 

And mellow hearts like mellowing apples fall. 



146 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

Heads how, and chant with husky breath : 

"Seed time and harvest shall not cease their ronnd"- 

And echoes from the wintry sea of Death 

On deep'ning stillness float with plaintive somid. 

'Tis Indian Summer, and its minor strain 
Of mingled sadness and of chastened mirth 

Soon dies like distant sobbing of the main. 
'Tis Nature's benediction on the earth. 

Winter 

As man, once turned against the Holy One, 

Gropes through the Arctic Winter-night of sin, 

Our sphere no longer leans toward the sun 
Whose kiss its daily light and life has been. 

Yet pious Nature has not ceased to pray, 

Though lulled to sweet forgetful ness she seems — 

Death but reveals the resurrection ray 

And o'er the tomb the Bow of Promise gleams. 

The winter is her hour of secret prayer. 

When she retreats and waits for strength anew, 

By angels wrapt in robes of ermine rare, 

Thus Nature worships God the whole year through. 

* iP- * 
THE VICTORY OF FAITH 

What did the sobbing night wind say 
As it bore my thoughts across that bay 
Where dying comrades waved their hand 
And vanished into the shadow land ? 

Each surge and swell was a funeral knell 
And only tolled "Farewell, farewell !" 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 147 



And the word was wafted, wail on wail, 
Like a wounded wind in a tattered sail, 
Till my heart grew sick of the grief -blown bay, 
And I looked beyond to the Gates of Day, 
And I cried, "0 God, touch thou mine ear — 
At the turn 0' the tide I wait to hear T' 

Now, this is the message that floats to me 
On the wings of Faith from the Infinite sea. 
Fresh from the lips we laid in the sod, 
Now limpid with life and the glory of God — 
Singing and ringing it crosses the wave, 
"Heaven is true, be brave, be brave/' 

$■ ^ ^ 

AN ECHO FEOM THE SEA 

As a shell upon the shore 
Has an echo evermore 

From the sea. 
As I lift to my ear 
And the music soft and clear 

Comes to me; 

So this tide-tossed soul of mine 
Has an echo still divine 

From above. 
Though it carries many a scar 
And the storm had borne it far 

From God's love. 

But the Shepherd of the sea 
Took me from the vile debris 
On the shore, 



148 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 




Made my heart with his to blend 
That an echo might ascend 
Evermore. 

Drifting one, whoe'er yon be, 
Tossing on life's sinful sea, 

Sorely driven, 
Hark the echo in thy soul 
Calling for a nobler goal — 

Cod and heaven. 

^ ^ ^ 

TKIUMPHUS; 017, THE VAXQUISHMENT OF 

FATE 

I sat upon the sad sea wall 

And heard the nio^ht bird's mournful call, 



Where an inlet held two hills apart, 
As things oft sever heart from heart, 







P 



O 
P-, 

02 



150 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

Till chilling currents roll between, 
Where once they touched in rapture keen. 

The tide was bearing from the sea 
Her daily freight of mystery. 

The waves leaped up the granite gray, 
But backward tumlded in dismay; 

Like vanquished legions of the tide 
They fell, while others came and died. 

And higher rose the water's edge. 
And sharper grew the jutting ledge. 

One waning star peered through a cloud 
Like dying eye from out a shroud. 

And saw a fragile, trembling form 
Buffeted hard by w^ave and storm — 

An unfledged bird, with piteous call, 
Was beating on the cold sea wall. 

The scowling cliff it could not scale — 
It beat the tide to no avail. 

So, like a quivering wretch of fate. 

It could but bruise, and bleed, and wait. 

Suggestion 

Next day there tossed upon my mind 
That naked bird in cruel wind, 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 151 



And strangely mingled was its cry, 
With all earth's anguish — with the sigh 

Of dying saint 'neath Eoman rods. 
Who fought against satanic odds — 

And all the helpless wails and tears 
That echo doAvn the vibrant years, 

Where gurgling blood and fiendish lust 
Make deepest hell but mildly just. 

Thus one ill-fated albatross 

Seemed linked with every crown and cross. 

I must at least find where it lay, 
And heap the sand above the clay, 

"To teach the cruel sea," I said, 
"That Pity is not also dead." 

It surely ceased its struggle sore. 

And helped to strew the festering shore. 

Where larger lives through countless years. 
Have traced their epitaph in tears. 

Emancipation" 

But not a trace of wing or limb 
Found I among the wreckage grim. 

Till, hearing an exultant cry, 
I found the victim did not die. 



152 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

For when the gracious day was born, 
The tide rushed out to meet the morn, 

The wavelets clapped their hands in glee, 
And chased each other back to sea. 

With graceful i)oise and placid breast. 
She rode the rushing billows' crest. 

Past cliff and gorge, o'er bar and bay. 
To the open sea away, away ! 

'Twas this for which her life was given. 
The widening sea her fairest heaven ! 

Meditation 

And as I watch the fading glow 
Of dying embers, ere I go, 

I see this l)ird, an emblem true, 

Of what eacli victor passes through. 

Oft seeming crushed by unseen power. 
The victim of an evil hour; 

Harassed by fiends without, within, 
A bondslave to the powers of sin, 

And bound to galling tyranny 
Of class — that baneful upas tree. 

He seems an ox, and harder driven 
AVhen best his bleeding soul lias striven. 




TO THE OPEX SEA AWAY, AWAY 



154 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



Degeneration 

How oft in Olivets like this^ 
Betrayed by some foul Judas kiss, 

A man forgets his soul is free, 
And fails to win his Calvary. 

He loses heart, and hope, and soul. 
And falls with shadow on the goal. 

Dull-eyed he plods before the goad. 
The fruits of sin his biggest load. 

He treads the garden of his soul 
And leaves no tender flow ret whole. 

He feeds on envy, hate, and death. 
Till, reeking foul with Bacchus breath. 

He bears a soul as grossly void 
As ever graced an anthropoid. 



Aspiration 

But haste, Muse, to bring the news 
That every soul has power to choose ! 

No "checkmate'' mars the Moral Plan! 
No Fate, but in the mind of man ! 

For ere the will has sealed his fate. 
There still remains a golden gate 




w 



H 



w 



156 THE WESTERN SPIRIT 

To Victory. In wildest wars, 

"Ye shall be more than conquerors" 

Rings out a slogan for the race — 
A heavenly voice of hope and grace. 

Xo night so dark, no sea so wide, 
But comes at length the ebbing tide, 

When aspirations may take wings 
And bear the soul to better things. 

ExuLTATio:^ 

Gaze once again where billows toss 
The helpless fledgling albatross — 

With cliff and tide and wind at war — 
Art thou as frail, or help so far? 

My soul seemed once in such a plight 

As, struggling through the deepening night. 

Bold barriers rose on every side 
Save where the cold resistless tide 

With unseen power still bore me on 
Against the cliff. My strength was gone; 

And asj^irations grand and high 
Seemed one by one to droop and die; 

Till suddenly I saw a star 

Gleam through the lowering clouds afar — 



THE WESTERN SPIRIT 



157 



A star more radiant with the years 
Dispelling doubts, and quelling fears. 

And as I gazed the tide was turned, 
^ly heart with hope now wildly burned. 

And led by its entrancing beam 
I sail an ever widening stream 

Where every faculty of soul 
Expands in His divine control. 

Conclusion 

They are the Vanquishers of Fate 
Who bravely strive and pray and wait. 

For ere his final doom shall fall, 

The hosts of heaven shall hear his call, 

And rally earth and sky and sea. 
All allies for his victory. 

The heart heroic will not down 

Then rise, soul, and claim thy crown ! 




